The greatest photojournalist in the history of
photography - Henri Cartier-Bresson, builds his unique style of photography on
the philosophy, he himself called "capturing the decisive moment."
According to Bresson there is a mere
moment in time, when shape and content are in balance. At that very second, the
objects in the frame exceed their ordinariness and become interconnected
messages. This is the moment in which the photographer has to pull the trigger.
Each frame of Henri Cartier-Bresson is an
illustration of this creative concept. I have a few favorite pictures of him,
by which, when necessary, I explain the meaning of "capturing in the
decisive moment."
Let's take for example the photograph "Behind the
Gare St. Lazarre ."
Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum photos
We see a man who is trying to cross a large puddle.
To overcome the obstacle, he jumps and gets caught by the photographer in the
air, in a posture having a distant analogy with ballet. The jump is repeated
once more in the reflection in the puddle.
Items listed are enough to make the picture
interesting. But the fact is that there's something more, something that makes
it brilliant. Henri Cartier-Bresson has noticed a poster for a ballet performance
in the background. The poster features a ballerina in graceful flying leap.
Comparing the two elements – the person jumping over the puddle with the ballet
poster - we see that the irony of the situation has made a ballet dancer out of
the ordinary man.
The picture is extremely accurate illustration of
the idea of "the decisive moment".
Before and after the two plot elements existed independently and each carried
its own significance. However, when they collided, the situation acquired a new
meaning.
The ideas of Henri Cartier-Bresson have become the
foundations of contemporary reportage photography. I do not deny that I myself
am trying to develop that direction.
Recently I started to digitize my archive of
negatives. My attention was caught by the images accompanying the photos that I
like. In general, when I see something I do not shoot much. But there are
situations when, besides the best picture, I shoot also several lesser
variations of the frame. It occurred to me that the illustration of the process
leading to the finding of a "decisive moment" could be useful for
people who are interested in reportage photography. Here are some examples.
The frame with the three figures and the road is
from Smolyan. I picked up the camera because of the beautiful trees shadow graphics.
In the first frame there is a lone figure of a woman. Seconds after that from
the left and right two more figures come into the picture. This new frame
brings an entirely different meaning. For me it symbolizes life - in the beginning
light and carefree, then increasingly steeper...
There are two more figures in the third picture -
the child's parents. The composition is saturated with accents and it lacks the
"magic" of the previous frame.
The image of the old lady and the swans is from 1992
when, as a student of cinematography I was a guest of the Munich Film Festival.
The woman feeding the swans impressed me and I shot a few frames. In most
photos swans are stretching their necks up thus loosing grace. Only one photo
gets both the old lady and the swans in harmony and this is the frame I like.
Below find some more "adjacent frames".
Pictures: Krasimir Andonov
