With due respect to Henri Cartier-Bresson, I think he got it wrong. It’s not the moment that is decisive, it’s the arrangement. When the arrangement only lasts for a moment, then the two are one, but the fact that it exists only briefly is only an accident of that particular composition. The thing that is sought is the configuration, not the ‘frame’ out of time.
Why does this matter? Because the word ‘moment’ in Cartier-Bresson’s famous phrase has led generations of photographers to look for and therefore to see the interaction of ‘actors’ in an image as that which will make a picture great. They see the players in the frame without seeing the entire frame. The entire content of the frame is the picture, not the players in it.
This focus on the interaction of objects rather than on the visual dynamics of all that is included in the frame results in pictures in which there is ’stuff’ that viewers are apparently supposed to just ignore. It’s not a player so it doesn’t matter. Things like sky, clouds, out-of-focus or semi-out-of-focus background colors and shapes, the ground (grass, dirt, whatever), or random ‘furniture’ which are as much a part of the total frame as are the active players.
This is not only wrong, it makes for bad photography. Everything in the rectangular frame of the image matters. Everything has to work together to make a dynamic composition that will attract, and hold the viewer’s attention. If there is any stuff — large, small, in focus or out of focus — in the frame that is ugly, unsupportive of the arrangement, distracting or nonsensical, the picture won’t work, no matter how ‘decisive’ the moment was reference the animate players in the frame.
To wait for the decisive moment implies standing patiently before time’s window, like patrons in a theater watching a play. Cartier-Bresson did no such thing. Quoting from an article found here :
“In an old film clip included in a 1994 documentary by director Sarah Moon, Cartier-Bresson can be seen, camera in hand, at a parade, bobbing and dipping, darting and weaving, focusing and refocusing, balancing on one reed-thin leg like some stork with a beret and a Leica, hurriedly trying to view all perspectives before the perfect one passes.”
He was not waiting for a moment, he was looking for arrangements. Look at his photographs; look at what is behind, under, above and around his players. It’s wonderfully composed. You won’t find stuff anywhere in the frame of his pictures that does not contribute to the entirety of the composition.
This applies to every great photographer. When looking through a view camera, moving it an inch this way or that, then standing for many minutes studying the ground glass, and finally, waiting for just the right clouds, just the right light … followed by a five minute exposure. It’s not about catching a moment in passing time, it’s about seeing, recognizing, choosing arrangements in the pictorial frame. Lest you think that ‘just the right clouds’ suggests a decisive moment; not at all. There are many configurations of cloud and scene that will work (and many more that won’t). It’s the arrangement that matters.
