Documentary Research Notes

Henri Cartier Bresson 

The Decisive Moment

The decisive moment is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organisation of forms which gives that event its proper expression.

Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer whose humane, spontaneous photographs helped establish photojournalism as an art form.

Henri Cartier-Bresson was born on August 22, 1908 in Chanteloup, France. A pioneer in photojournalism, Cartier-Bresson wandered around the world with his camera, becoming totally immersed in his current environment. Considered one of the major artists of the 20th century, he covered many of the world biggest events from the Spanish Civil War to the French uprisings in 1968.

Cartier-Bresson's rise as a photographer proved rapid. By the mid 1930s he'd shown his work in major exhibits in Mexico, New York, and Madrid. His images revealed the early raw possibilities of street photography and photojournalism in general.

He is considered to be one of the foremost photographers having established Magnum an organisation  which represents documentary photographers and his fine art background helped him in establishing creative compositions such as rule of thirds golden ration etc. 

This is a powerful image created by Henri Cartier Bresson, this is because the woman walking up the stairs alone, shows a sense of loneliness, as well as the birds flying away symbolises one life passing on, this could show that the women is suffering a loss, and is going somewhere to rest in peace. we are able to tell that she is walking up a set of stairs to the top as the railings shows a leading line, in a spiral. additionally with the image being in black and white, indicates loss and pain, however the fact that its brighter with more white as she walks ups the stairs, could indicate some hope as she is walking away from the darkness below her.

This is an interesting image as it shows how oblivious the two young boys are that someone is taking a photograph of them, as well as the planes and crowd behind them. the fact that the boys are so oblivious shows that they are interested in something, that has completely taken their whole attention. you know they are looking at something as the young boy is pointing at something, that we cannot see, which creates a sense of unknown as we don't know what he is pointing at. The fact that the photograph is in black and white represents that the photograph is old, which is also symbolised by the planes as it looks like there is a war going on, this means that it was a long time ago, additionally the clothing is old fashioned. this represents the decisive moment because their are many things going on at once, however the main focus is the two young boys.

This image represents the decisive moment as the cyclist has been captured while riding down the road. its an inspirational image as the stairs have made the photograph interesting, as we don't know where they lead to, as well as we don't know where the man on the bike is going. The black and white effect shows all the different tones on the street, as in the left bottom corner its a darker shade, than the steps leading up towards the middle bottom of the photograph.

Matthew Seed

Matthew seed is a horse photographer who creates intensely moving artistic equine portraits in fractions of a second. To create such powerful and artistic portraits it consists of using controlled lighting, a camera and intuition.