documentary - decisive moment

The term 'Decisive moment' came around from the French photographer 'Henri Cartier Bresson' who was considered a master of candid photography, he was one of the first to develop street photography and the 'decisive moment' is what he viewed photography as being.

In David Bates' reading on storytelling he also speaks of a German critic named Gotthold Lessing who has developed the term of a 'Pregnant moment' where the past present and future can be depicted from a single glance by the viewer whilst also having their own interpretation on the moment.

An example of this is showing aspects of politics and hidden messages whether they are intended or not to make up a good documentary photograph.

This is one of the photos used in Bates' reading taken by Henri Cartier Bresson himself it shows one of many paintings of dutch governors being removed from the governors residence. This to me represents freedom and how they have achieved independence by ridding the dutch masters, not literally but by carrying their paintings out.

He also speaks about the composition of raw material that develops into photographic codes, and how a founder of social documentary (John grierson once said 'a good documentary is a good interpretation of real life'. This to me says that a good documentary photograph can be easily depicted and analysed by the viewer as it is telling the viewer 'look at this' and it suggests that there is a reality within the photo.


Here I have made a contact sheet of photos I took recreating Henri Cartier Bresson's theory of the 'Decisive moment', We were asked to go out and shoot candid photos of something just before it happens and imitating Gotthold Lesson's theory of a 'Pregnant Moment'




Below you can see I have captured a photo of a student taking a photo with his phone, this was on a sunny day and you could easily assume what is going to happen and what has happened however what is he taking a photo of? that for the viewer to intemperate.






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Abstract

Image
Photography theory Bates speaks about 3 different aspects of photography theory which are: identity, culture and social value he ten furthered this by speaking about 'theory of representation' and how the French philosopher 'Louis Althusser' argues that ideology was primarily communicated through images and some may find this ideology to be true and some may view them as false, but what is clear is that photographs are made up of codes and languages that all peoples differently. Another word for this 'language' is semiotics which is a system of signs that people see in a photo, one of the pioneers of semiotics was Ferdinand de Saussure who argued that language is am 'organised system of signs'. Semiotics is also used to distinguish the photograph from the concept of the photograph, a viewer is needed to give the picture a signified meaning as they will have their own interpretation of the photo (the concept) . This was a photo taken by 'Ri...
Read more

portraits / studio work / composition

Image
The way in which I want to shoot my images is in a set of 6 portraits the reason for this is after reading bate's work on portraiture I feel this is the best way to get a full visual representation as bate's describes portraits as being an 'identity' that can be depicted through the photos. As you can I have chosen the artist 'Joel Knight' as research for modern portraiture, shot in a studio as in this weeks session we are experimenting we will be experimenting in the studio working with different lighting and seeing if I wanted to shoot my final images in a studio environment.  This portrait on the left by Joel Knights is a perfect example is what I'am trying to achieve in the studio in todays session as it has nice lighting that highlights the subjects face showing their key features. And after reading David Prakël's reading on 'composition' I learnt that 'composition is the process of identifying and arranging the elements to produce a ...
Read more

portraiture

Image
Portraits are said to be made up of 4 different aspects, such as: face, pose, clothing and location. you can use these different aspects to create a photo best suited to the subject. "portrait is a means employed to establish the identity of the sitter" Portraits are thought out to be shot at weddings birthdays and other various ceremonies however Bates argues that they are an 'art of description' which make up peoples social identity examples like passport photos that act as a legal identity. portraits are also a common form of advertisement when it comes to fashion, there are various different things that can be used to make up a trait such as : props, costumes and backgrounds, however it is the social identity that is the performance for the camera. A portrait can be set up to reveal whatever personality you want depending on what the subject is wearing, this is very important to bear in mind as that means the photographer can decide what he ants the viewer ...
Read more