The Decisive Moment...

Well, i finally ordered my D200 from Downtown Camera in Toronto! It should be on its way by the end of January, now its just a matter of keeping myself busy till then! :) One of the things I'm looking forward to using on the camera is the 5 frames/sec feature. This leads me to my topic of the day... capturing the decisive moment.

When I start shooting pictures in a group of people, I usually take 4 or 5 pix in a row. I'm always asked afterward why I shoot so many. Well the main reason is, I'm trying catch those perfect moments when the action is right at its 'peak'. Legendary french street photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson was all about capturing the 'decisive moment', a term he coined for the moment when everything just comes together. For example, if you're watching a scene unfold there's always a point where all the action is at its 'peak' moment. This is the moment street photographers strive to capture, but it's very difficult to do. The best photographers can watch a scene and anticipate the action and take one quick shot and catch it. But for the rest of us mortals, it's all about shooting off a few frames in the time you hope the peak action will occur, and hope you caught it.

It takes a lot of practice to anticipate, compose, and shoot a good scene consistently. I've only been able to do it a few times (usually by luck).

Here's a scene I particularly liked and thought I'd include in today's post (I've also finally figured out how to post pix within entries!):

My two friends were sitting in a coffee shop (lets call them 'A' and 'B' from left to right). B is waiting for a female 'significant other' to arrive. As a joke, A (the one with the phone) calls B's other significant-other to come by the coffee shop at the same time too. We can see B's reaction to that idea... 1 second later his expression was back to normal as he realized it was a joke :)