‘There are two fundamentals in all picture taking – where to stand and when to release the shutter … so photography is very simple.’

(Jay & Hurn, 2001, p.37)

So photography is simply viewpoint and moment… but what about subject? The simplest subject is the moment. You can record the moment with a snapshot, but when you review the photograph later you find you didn’t actually record the moment, you just recorded the ‘event of photography’.

It might take a very long time to simplify the whole world and its infinite framings into a subject that makes sense to you. Robert Adams said, ‘Sooner or later one has to ask of all pictures
what kind of life they promote’ (Grundberg, 1999, p.34). For now, though, you should just feel comfortable with your subject. It should say something about you and, in the end, you like it!

Brief

The final assignment is an open brief. Take a series of 10 photographs of any subject exploring the theme ‘Photography is Simple’. Each photograph should be a unique view; in other words, it should contain some new information, rather than repeat the information of the previous image.

Assignment notes

In your assignment notes explore how you think you’ve answered the brief. This is a chance for a little philosophical reflection. EYV student Tor Burridge:

‘I have reconsidered my stand point that fundamentally photography is simple. When I shoot for the pure enjoyment of it photography does indeed feel simple. But really it is the product of layers of knowledge – on composition, on light, the technicalities of my camera. It is also inevitably influenced by the work of others, the subtle lessons that I have unknowingly committed to memory about angles and viewpoint. So taking into consideration the effects of context, the mind-set of the viewer and also the subtleties of what influences a photographer to make an image in a particular way, I think it can be concluded that photography is simple – until it isn’t.’

Make sure you word process and spellcheck your notes as QWE (the Quality of Written English) is an important part of presentation. Include a ‘Harvard’ bibliography to reference your reading and research for this assignment. The quality of your references and how deeply you’ve responded to them is more important than the quantity.

You may like to request a video tutorial for this assignment. As well as the opportunity to discuss the development and/or resolution of the assignment work, your tutor will be able to answer any questions you may have on assessment and progression to the next unit.

Research

Michele Groskopf

‘Not to sound corny but I go on and on how much street photography has taught me about myself – more than it taught me about people, what it’s taught me about myself. What makes me tick, what I love to look at, what I’m interested in, how resilient I can be, how creative I can be. I wish that for everybody, I wish everybody’s passion led to that kind of self knowledge and self love.’

Michele Groskopf’s Interview with Ibarionex for Candid Frame is at https://audioboom.com/ posts/4242053-tcf-ep-312-michelle-groskopf [accessed 25/01/18]

Miho Kajioka

‘It was Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami that reconnected me to photography. Two months after the disaster, while reporting in the coastal city of Kamaishi, where over 800 people died, I found roses blooming beside a blasted building. That mixture of grace and ruin made me think of a Japanese poem:

In the spring, cherry blossoms, In the summer the cuckoo,
In autumn the moon, and in Winter the snow, clear, cold.

Written by the Zen monk Dogen, the poem describes the fleeting, fragile beauty of the changing seasons. The roses I saw in Kamaishi bloomed simply because it was spring. That beautiful and uncomplicated statement, made by roses in the midst of ruin, impressed me, and returned me to photography.

Miho Kajioka’s series ‘as it is’ is on Lens Culture: https://www.lensculture.com/articles/miho- kajioka-as-it-is [accessed 25/01/18]

Ane Hjort Guttu

‘I was in this state where everything could be art, or not… as if I was inside a zone where all things could be the result of a higher formal awareness: the roads, the chewing gum on the sidewalk, the yellow light over the city on our way home from kindergarten. Or it could not be, it didn`t matter any more. Everything became art, and in that same moment nothing’.

Morgan Quintance’s interview with the Norwegian artist Ane Hjort Guttu is on Soundcloud. Listen out for the slightly uncanny ‘bell’ at 18:52, it marks the beginning of the passage quoted above. The paradox that Guttu is referring to has been visible in art since Duchamp and examples of it appear here in the ‘Equivalents’ by Stieglitz and ‘Gas Stations’ by Ruscha. You experimented with it yourself in Exercise 1.4.

http://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/studio-visit-12jun2016-ane-hjort-guttu_studio-visit/

[accessed 25/01/18]

Reflection

Check your work against the assessment criteria for this course before you send it to your tutor. Make some notes in your learning log about how well you believe your work meets each criterion.

Reworking your assignment

Following feedback from your tutor, you may wish to rework some of your assignment, especially if you plan to submit your work for formal assessment. Assessors will make an objective evaluation of your work against the assessment criteria through the assignments, tutor reports and learning log, so after receiving your tutor’s comments, review your assignment and write up any changes you make in your learning log.

It is simple…honest!

Photography is a form of non-verbal communication. A meaningful photograph, or a successful photograph does one of several things: It allows the viewer to see something that he or she has looked at many times without really seeing it; It shows something that that he or she has never encountered; or it asks questions, creates mysteries, interest or sparks curiosity. In other words it makes us question what? Photographs can inspire, invoke awe, wonder, amusement, compassion, horror or endless other emotions and feelings. It raises questions about the world around us or educates us about the world around us.

At its best, a photograph conveys a thought from one person, the photographer, to another, the viewer. Photography is therefore similar to other forms of artistic non-verbal communication whether it’s painting, sculpture or music. Each of these forms of art means something to its viewer/listener without them being present when it was created. Whether it is a portrait photograph or an image of a landscape, they all convey more than just the thing that is being depicted, but also they convey the majesty or magnificence felt when viewing the subject first-hand. Even though photography is a relatively new media compared to the more ‘traditional’ arts, it can still tell the whole story and no other media is needed.

The plan

I’d always had a plan for this final assignment since I had completed the first one. I didn’t get chance to explore the 60s/70s telephone exchange in the village in which I live. It is a bit of an eyesore in the thatched cottage, picturesque village and is due to be demolished to make way for a new car park. However, it is and has been an integral part of village life for many years and has served its purpose from the analogue days through to the modern digital age. So, with my new love of photography and new camera in hand, I took the opportunity to go and have a look.

I have just treated myself to a Canon EOS 90d (don’t tell the wife!) with a new 18-135mm lens. I realised that my old 450d was on par with my iPhone in terms of image quality and functionality and it needed a step up. I also wanted a more versatile lens that would enable me to take more variety of images with the one lens instead of having to always carry a multitude of lens sizes with me at all times.

This was the perfect opportunity to try them out.

I wasn’t sure what to expect at the site and wondered if I’d be able to get enough shots for the assignment criteria. Some were easier than others, and some needed a little more post production than others. As a result some images are stronger and more successful than others, but as a group I feel that they tell a story of the building that is there and its utilitarian beauty.

My select

I have selected 10 images of the phone exchange that I think give an idea of its former use and the feel of it being obsolete at the same time.

Reflection

For this assignment I deliberately used a simple subject to show that even the most mundane of subject matter can be made interesting with a creative eye and a little planning of what it is you are trying to achieve. Photography for fun can be simple point and shoot, whether that’s with a camera or, more commonly these days, a mobile phone. But it also can be complicated and more contrived when viewed through the eyes of a designer or photographer. This is when thoughts of light, composition, shutter speed, and depth of field come into play and the thought process becomes more time consuming and more important than releasing the shutter. In an age of instant gratification and social media, photography is everywhere. However, the idea of it being instant can be a contradiction when it comes to the amount of work needed to get ‘that’ shot.

I feel that through the course of this module I have gained more of an insight into photography and an appreciation of the skill that goes into creating good images. Through the material in this module and my own independent research, I have reignited my interest in photography and I think that this shows through the work produced from my initial submissions to the latter parts of the course.

As a distance learning student at OCA you’re not an autodidact, you have the benefit of tutor reports and a formal assessment at the end of each course. One of the ways to make the
most of tutor reports is to rework assignments after receiving feedback. In fact, it’s a good
idea to approach the whole course – exercises, contextual research and assignments – as an ongoing body of work, until you decide you’re ready to enter for assessment. With this in mind, Assignment Four asks you to return to one of the exercises from Part Four and develop it into a formal assignment submission.

You’ll need to submit prints at assessment and sharing with your tutor at this point in the unit will be an opportunity to get feedback on print quality. If you’re hard pressed to submit the prints you don’t have to send the whole assignment, you can send a selection and submit the rest of the series via blog or in the usual way that you’ve agreed with your tutor.

Brief

Revisit one of the exercises on daylight, artificial light or controlled light from Part Four (Ex 4.1, Ex 4.2 or Ex 4.3) and develop it into a formal assignment submission. The submission requirement for this assignment is a set of between six and ten high-quality photographic prints.

There are many ways to edit and the most valuable one is probably to show your work to friends, family and your OCA peers for feedback – you are guaranteed to discover something new in your work. Another tip is to pin the work up on the wall and live with a for a few days. ‘A Quick Guide to Editing Your Photo Series using Stickies’ on the IPO (Invisible Photographer Asia) website, but bear in mind that this is not a narrative assignment – you’re not required to produce a story.

http://invisiblephotographer.asia/2013/11/18/editing101-quickguidestickies/

Assessment of photography in any context is an assessment of images and accompanying words so please Include a written analysis of your work outlining:

• how you have developed the assignment from the original exercise in Part 4
• which practitioners you’ve looked at for inspiration and how their work has influenced you
• your technical approach and any particular techniques you incorporated
• the strengths and weaknesses of particular photographs and your project as a whole (self-assessment). Conclude your notes with a personal reflection on how you’ve developed the exercise in order to meet the descriptors of the Creativity criteria. Write 500–1,000 words.

Initial idea

From the images from the previous exercises, the one I was drawn to was the one of the petrol station in the exercise ‘Artificial Light’.

When I took this shot in the original exercise it reminded me of Edward Ruscha’s ‘Twentysix Gasoline Stations’ and the later ‘Twentysix Abandoned Gasoline Stations’ by Éric Tabuchi.

I wondered if I could expand on this idea using artificial light as the the theme for the assignment and base it on the nearby countryside petrol stations. I wanted to take the images at night to show the different light used in the range of ages and uses of the petrol stations. While out taking the my shots, due to the longer shutter speeds, I managed to capture both the stillness of the stations and the movement of the traffic around them.

I then tried them in monochrome to see if the colour of the light mattered or whether the viewer could still interpret the images without the distinctive light colours.

Some worked better than others, but some of the images didn’t rely on the colour of light mattered to the overall ‘feel’ of the image.

While playing with artificial light it occurred to me that this was the ideal time of year to capture plenty of them while out and about in Totnes on a December evening. I had wanted to experiment with bokeh, and the Christmas lights seemed the obvious way to do that.

Unlike the previous images, these definitely benefit from being full colour. They convey enough information without being in focus, but you can get the general idea in most of the images of what the subject is meant to be.

Select

My ‘select’ for this assignment are the black and white images of the petrol stations. They depict both the ambient light of the stations themselves as well as the movement of the traffic around them with the long exposure of the headlights and break lights. I think that these are more original than the bokeh Christmas lights.

Reflection

This assignment proved to be a challenge when it can to the subject matter. Once I’d honed in on the idea of the petrol stations I was glad to have a direction. However, I then doubted the idea and tried something different but kept coming back to the original concept and I’m glad I did as it gave me the chance to go back to my shots and re-evaluate them and what was important about them and what wasn’t. The important thing was the light itself, not the colour of it, and how it was conveyed. Capturing the light at night had its challenges but also led to some unexpected results which added to the end result. Planning where to go and what to shoot also helped in getting what I wanted. I think that this could be improved upon to help achieve better results. This part of the course has helped me to see and understand that planning is often more important than taking the shots themselves.

References

Adsum. 2021. Ed Ruscha’s Twentysix Gasoline Stations. [online] Available at: <https://adsumnyc.com/blogs/news/twenty-six-gasoline-stations-ed-ruscha&gt; [Accessed 27 December 2021].

2021. [online] Available at: <https://www.lespressesdureel.com/EN/ouvrage.php?id=1783&menu=0&gt; [Accessed 27 December 2021].

‘The decisive moment is not a dramatic climax but a visual one: the result is not a story but a picture.’ (Swarkowski, 2007, p.5)

‘You know it’s funny. You come to someplace new, and everything looks just the same.’ (Eddie in Stranger Than Paradise, Dir. Jim Jarmusch, 1984)

Brief

Create a set of between six and ten finished images on the theme of the decisive moment. You may choose to create imagery that supports the tradition of the ‘decisive moment’ or you may choose to question or invert the concept by presenting a series of ‘indecisive’ moments. Your aim isn’t to tell a story, but in order to work naturally as a series there should be a linking theme, whether it’s a location, event or particular period of time.

Include a written introduction to your work of between 500 and 1000 words outlining your initial ideas and subsequent development. You’ll need to contextualise your response with photographers that you’ve looked at, and don’t forget to reference the reading that you’ve done.

Exemplars

The OCA photography forum is a useful place to discuss ideas, share work and gather informal advice for this assignment.

Tutor Clive White: ‘As ever it’s not about showing us decisive moments it’s about the student showing us they understand the concept and can employ it creatively as a strategy in progressing their own work.’

For a view from assessment read the post on David Fletcher’s Assignment 3 on the WeAreOCA blog here:
https://weareoca.com/subject/film/david-fletcher/

OCA student Steve Young used juxtaposition and ambiguity as his creative strategy (be aware that the brief has since been updated): https://createatocalevel1photograph.wordpress.com/category/assignments/assignment-3/

And another ‘inversion’ of the decisive moment from student Martyn Rainbird: https://ocamartynrainbird.wordpress.com/category/assignments/assignment-3/

Reflection

Check your work against the assessment criteria for this course before you send it to your
tutor. Make some notes in your learning log about how well you believe your work meets each criterion. Your tutor may take a while to get back to you so carry on with the course while you’re waiting.

Reworking your assignment

Following feedback from your tutor, you may wish to rework some of your assignment, especially if you plan to submit your work for formal assessment. If you do this, make sure you reflect on what you’ve done and why in your learning log.

Research

Having previously looked at the original “decisive moment” by Henri Cartier Bresson, I still wasn’t 100 percent clear on the concept and need to clarify it for myself.

I found an article in Inspired Eye Photography Magazine that helped me understand the concept a bit better. The original Idea attributed to Cartier Bresson actually comes from the 17th century writings of Cardinal de Retz when he penned “Il n’y a rien dans ce monde qui n’ait un moment decisif”–“There is nothing in this world that doesn’t have a decisive moment”. This basically translates to those “sliding door” moments in life, whether big or small. The article uses the example of the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand in Austria as a major decisive moment in history as it started the First World War.

This image helped me to understand the concept further as it encapsulated the elements of what makes the decisive moment in photography. It depicts the idea that when the photographer’s eye, heart and mind are in alignment, you stand a good chance of achieving that decisive moment.

However, there is another element to this equation: time.

The ancient Greeks had two words for time: chronos and kairos. The former refers to chronological or sequential time, while the latter signifies a proper or opportune time for action. The Greeks believed that Kairos could be easily caught by the hair when he’s running towards you. But once he would get passed you, you could not catch him by the hair because he is bald from the back. Hence, a Kairos moment, once lost is lost forever….just like the Decisive moment.

It then occurred to me that the ‘Decisive moment’ is also very subjective. One person’s ‘moment’ could be perceived completely differently by another. Just as every ‘moment’ is different, the perception of it is also unique. This then means that it could be applied to any form of photography, whether it is portrait, landscape or street photography. It all depends on when the photographer decides to press the shutter, or not as the case may be to freeze that ‘moment’ in time.

The ideas behind capturing the decisive moment extends well past just street photography and portraiture. Landscape, nature, and travel photography also lend themselves well to a consideration of the decisive moment. The rapid movement of birds or other animals requires a quick shot and a sense of timing. The constantly-changing light of a sunrise or sunset demands an eye for detail and patience to wait out the best moment. Rather than shooting a rapid burst of shots and hoping for the best, you need to plan, anticipate, and photograph only the moment you truly want.

Does this then negate the spontaneous nature of the ‘decisive moment’? Can it be planned or staged?

In his book ‘The Photographer’s Eye’, Michael Freeman goes on the expand on this saying that anticipation is also a vital element of the ‘Decisive Moment’. He suggests, “Take, for example, a scene in front of which someone is about to pass. Before this happens, the composition that suggests itself is likely to be different from the one including the person. Anticipating the changed dynamic is always vital.”

So, if you compose a scene and anticipate something or someone changing that scene is it spontaneous, decisive? Or is it planned, indecisive?

In an article on photographic psychology; John Suler PhD professor of Rider University described the decisive moment as a ‘highly debated concept’. Throughout the years, Cartier-Bresson’s theory has been discussed from various angles and perspectives. Many of the arguments are objectively recent and mainly refer to the growing technological advance.

In his article John Suler, mentions the fact that some modern photographers rejecting the decisive moment as an ‘outdated idea’. This conveys the most discussed contemporary aspect of Cartier-Bresson’s idea – the technology. Photographers in today’s society do not think about the decisive moment anymore, they simply do not have to. New equipment such as cameras are easily capable of capturing enormous amounts of images in incredibly short periods of time. Without the concern, neither the cost nor the necessity to change, acquire new film roll or even then the requirement to develop the shots. Photographers either professional or amateur are able to pick the decisive moment afterwards rather then consider it just before the shot or while taking the photo.

Initial ideas

My initial idea was to use water as my subject matter as I would be able to use both short and long exposure to freeze its motion.

I treated myself to an ND filter to help with the long exposure shots in the daylight. I went straight for an ND10 to start with without knowing it would be too dark to get the desired effect. I did however manage to get one decent shot that had nothing to do with what I was attempting:

This wasn’t going to as easy as I thought. I dismissed the idea of using water and went back to the drawing board. I felt stuck! I didn’t understand what was being asked of me…

I went back to Cartier Bresson and found a video on YouTube about trying to emulate his work.

This video gave me an insight into what I could do. I’d have to be more spontaneous, I’d need more of a street photography kind of approach. Using some direction from the video I spent a couple of days exploring the coastal towns of Torquay and Dartmouth. I wanted to capture the essence of the English seaside out of season, the juxtaposition of being in a tourist destination when there aren’t any tourists. Another thing I took from the video were the camera settings preferred by Cartier-Bresson and I tried to stick to them and use just my 50mm lens, a shutter speed of 1/125 and an ISO of 400. I also had to be braver and be more spontaneous.

Contact Sheets

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Of the 295 shots I whittled it down to about a dozen possibilities. I had already decided that I wanted my images to be in black and white as per Cartier-Bresson. This would also help to link the images as a series.

Some of these shots were more successful than others, so more culling was needed.

I was happy with the images that I was left with. They were an eclectic mix of the continuing life of out-of-season resorts with a hint of the desolation that occurs when the season ends. Torquay is a lot more seasonal than Dartmouth, as life in Dartmouth revolves around the river and port which never really stops and there is a lot of maritime history there.

Of the images have chosen for this assignment I feel that there is one clear winner when you link it back to to the title and subject – The Decisive Moment:

This image to me is a moment captured in time. When you consider that the train is moving and I was moving the camera to keep up, this shot captures some great lines from the bridge’s shadow which seems to continue the lines of the bridge itself, to the figure silhouetted on the train which are both fortuitous and completely random in nature. I am very happy with this shot.

Reflection

I struggled with this assignment. The brief was open-ended and I think that was what I found most difficult. However, once I set aside any preconceived ideas I had about the idea of ‘The Decisive Moment’ and just went out with my camera and just started shooting. This assignment helped me understand better the essence of the course-‘expressing your vision’ and the different strategies that underpin photographic practice. Cartier-Bresson is a titan among the reference of photographic practice, and it almost felt blasphemous to not try and honour the tradition of the decisive moment. As I dug deeper into it, I found his approach so ubiquitous and imitated, that I wanted to avoid cliche and felt looking for moments ‘pregnant with meaning’ and ‘precise organisation of forms’ somewhat restrictive. However, I did want to play with, interpret, and experiment with the concept, and the journey from my first thoughts to what I ended up with, taught me that the creative process is something you have to be open to – something Cartier-Bresson talks about in the video Lamour de court, and I found this very stimulating.

I feel I have demonstrated decent technical and visual skills, from processing to black and white and general composition, layout, and curation. I used and analysed my contact sheets extensively for this assignment and it helped me decide whether to present the photos in colour or black and white. I found this a difficult decision as I felt some photos worked quite well in colour, others in monochrome. In the end, I went for black and white to achieve more consistency.

Having gone through his process and creating a series from conception through to taking the photographs, curation, and spontaneity have taught me a couple of things. First was, although I respect Cartier Bresson, I find the idea of the Decisive Moment too restrictive creatively and don’t fully agree with the quote from the introduction of the book ‘The Decisive Moment’ that ‘Photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organisation of forms which give that event its proper expression.’. Events have many ‘moments’ to capture, and no matter how you capture them, whether planned or spontaneous, all results are valid.
The second learning was the workflow and creative process-I loved the fact that when I went out with my camera I had no idea what I might come back with or how an idea might develop and grow.

References

INSPIRED EYE. 2021. How to understand the Decisive Moment. [online] Available at: <https://www.theinspiredeye.net/street-photography-tips/decisive-moment/&gt; [Accessed 20 September 2021].

En.wikipedia.org. 2021. Kairos – Wikipedia. [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kairos&gt; [Accessed 20 September 2021].

Freeman, M., n.d. Michael Freeman’s the photographer’s eye.

Youtube.com. 2021. [online] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD4hCqORK60&gt; [Accessed 17 October 2021].

Ukessays.com. 2021. The decisive moment. [online] Available at: <https://www.ukessays.com/essays/photography/the-decisive-moment.php&gt; [Accessed 18 October 2021].