A discussion of the idea of The Decisive Moment

1. Decisions
A meditation on a photograph and a photographic image
in light of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s notion of The Decisive Moment
Writing in his 1952 book Images à la sauvette, Henri Cartier-Bresson announced his philosophy
of the decisive moment in photography. He based his principle on a passage from the works of
Cardinal de Retz (1613-1679), who wrote:
”Il n'y a rien dans ce monde qui n'ait un moment decisif.” ("There is nothing in this world that
does not have a decisive moment.”)
Cartier-Bresson adapted this maxim to his own photographic style, stating:
“Photographier: c'est dans un même instant et en une fraction de seconde reconnaître un fait et
l'organisation rigoureuse de formes perçues visuellement qui expriment et signifient ce fait.” (To
photograph: it is in a single moment and in a split second to recognize a fact and the rigorous
organization of visually perceived forms that express and signify this fact.”)
Some people believe that this principle applies, not only to photography, but to all art — or even,
as in the first instance as stated by Cardinal de Retz, to all actions in life.
Others see the decisive moment as merely a shorthand for quick thinking on the part of candid
photographers, whose reactions are fast enough to capture the image they want before the scene
vanishes from sight.
For now, we’ll take a look at two images and see how well they capture or express a decisive
moment: Kirsty Kelly’s photo of her daughter and Lyubomir Bukov’s Shadows of Past.

2. Two Decisions

3. Kirsty Kelly, photo of her daughter Rebecca in front of John Lavery's 1911 painting of Anna Pavlova -- Glasgow, 2012

4. Lyubomir Bukov, ”Shadows of Past” (2014)

5. From the parallax of the painting’s frame, Kelly’s image seems to have been the lucky snapshot of a
moment. The photographer must have had her camera ready for a shot, though, and timed the exposure just
right to capture both the contrast and the unity of the scene.
The image could have been given a momentous or evocative title — “Aspiration,” “Past and Future,”
“Inspiration” — but the photographer simply labeled it as a picture of her daughter taken in front of Sir
John Lavery’s painting of the famous Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova.
Even without a title, though, the imaginative dimension of the picture is instantly clear to the viewer. And
though “Aspiration” and “Inspiration” are possible readings, imitation is clearly at work: a child’s
willingness to try on an adult role in order to experience how it might feel. Adults would be content just to
stand and contemplate a picture in a museum. This girl, however, wants a visceral connection, not just to
the image, but to the dance itself.

6. The Bukov image is also about youth and age, but it takes the form of a direct statement: the bifurcation of
age — the old man and old women walking with canes in opposite directions without acknowledging each
other, in contrast to their dancing youthful shadows that leap and lean into each other. Both pairs are
shadows of the past. And unlike the Kelly photo, there is no prospect of unification. The past is a shadow,
the present a reality of age, decrepitude and separation.
Obviously this is no candid shot, no inspired capture of a scene by Bukov. It is the work of the darkroom.
Even the two figures walking in opposite directions derive from separate shots — note the different angles
of the shadows cast by the canes. “Shadows of the past” is a photographic montage. It is a photographic
image, but not a photograph.

7. The Decisive Moment and the Significant Instant
Is either an image of a decisive moment?
If the young girl goes on to become a dancer, her moment of imitation is decisive. If not, the photograph captures only a passing
incident in her childhood.
But in the larger context, such a child’s fantasy is an expression of human life that exists throughout all human history. Even adults (in
Aldous Huxley’s words) “overact the part of [their] favorite character in fiction.”
Was the mother aware of that larger context — every child’s yearning to experience the life of an admired adult — or was her
decision to capture the moment only an urge to capture a cute incident in her daughter’s life? Without asking the photographer, we
will never know.
The older couple’s separation is decisive only insofar as the passage of time precludes the future. Though the old man and woman
may meet at some time later, they will never again be the young dancers they once were (or imagined they were).
And maybe they never were dancers: only two people passing each other by, never to recapture what was or might have been. And
possibly they never even passed each other by: Bukov could have taken any two separate photographs and juxtaposed them in this
manner.
The decision to contrast what they were capable of the past but no longer (their canes tell us that) their state is the artist’s constructed
commentary. As a made artifact, a montage, Bukov’s juxtaposition of opposites is closer to painting than to straight photography. In
his assembled image, different photographic sources are so brought together and contrived so as to make a predetermined statement
— an ironic contrast between two stages of life. “Shadows of the Past” provides us with a state of mind that Mondrian associated with
the purpose of all art: “the transformation of natural vision.”
Kelly’s photograph, by contrast, is the natural vision itself: an unmanipulated picture of a real moment in a real girl’s life, whose own
future may or may not have been transformed by the encounter with the painting of Pavlova.
Both images were posted publicly, thereby making them available for thoughtful consideration by anyone with internet access.
Both pictures now exist in their worldwide, digital context. There they fulfill the traditional goal of all pictorial art: to “express and
signify” the moment when the face or the act reveals the essence of the personality or the event.

8. Arthur Chandler
2019