BBC's The Genius of Photography - Episode 3:Right Time, Right Place
Here are the notes I made whilst watching the third episode:
Decisive Moment
In 1933, Henri Cartier-Bresson took a photograph in Paris, which created the 'decisive moment' in photography.
The decisive moment and the historical moment would form a bond, creating iconic images for the new type of photographer - the photojournalist. But how much can we actually trust a photograph in terms of its content and what it portrays?
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson is the godfather of photojournalism. From the early 1930s, he would wander the streets, snapping moments. His decisive moments transformed the face of photography.
His pictures were about being in the right place and the right time. He could step into a space and see the theatrical probabilities. He understood there was life in all space if you waited for that perfect moment. He was almost a stalker.
Photographers pounce for the perfect moment because there is a capacity to interpret the flux of daily life, which contained elements of truth.
The interesting thing about photography is once you press that shutter, you will sense or have a visual orgasm if you know you've captured a perfect moment or not. The feeling you get when you look at a perfect moment, it almost looks surreal.
Bresson was a surrealist. The surrealist believes that there is a super-reality behind appearances, and occasionally it would reveal itself. All you had to do was wait for it to happen. With Bresson, when the action enters the space, he knows how to time it so it reaches its climax. That's the decisive moment.
Bresson was only able to capture such moments because of a revolutionary development in camera technology. The 'Leica' camera, launched in Germany in 1925 was compact, quiet and due to the advancements in lens technology it possessed, it gave to an all new style of instant photography.
According to Meyerowitz, the 'Leica' camera it allowed to you to be present in the moment and glide through the moment. This was due to the to the viewfinder being placed so far to the left side of the camera (unlike to traditional central position of SLR camera viewfinders) which allowed the other eye to be open, so you could observe the scene fully without you visioned being narrowed to just the viewfinder.
Robert Capa
Hungarian-born photojournalist, Robert Capa, also used the 'Leica' camera for decisive moment photography, just like Bresson.
The photo shows the death of a Spanish civil war soldier being shot down by a bullet.
When the world war started 3 years later, Capa's photography brought fame, heroism and charisma to war photography. Working for Life magazine, he maintained that the first rule of photojournalism was the get close, and the second rule, to get closer. It earned him the reputation of being the world's greatest war photographer and it's first real celebrity.
People believe pictures, and photography has always been best at capturing reality. For instance, you passport ID is a photograph, not a painting. George Bernard-Shaun said "I would trade every painting of Jesus for one snapshot".
Tony Vacarro
Tony Vacarro photographed moments of the war on a daily basis, but working as an ordinary G.I./photographer. The army issued speed-graphic cameras to certain soldiers during WWII to document moments, but these camera were very large and time-consuming when switching film which forced Vacarro to find a more practical camera for his photographs. Unlike Capa, he couldn't afford a 'Leica' and settle for the Ardus C3.
As a photojournalist, he couldn't help but be close to the actions of war. When a German tank was bombed right in front of his eyes, it was photography and not survival that he was thinking about.
On D-Day, the greatest military operation in history took place, involving over 1,000,000 men on the allied side alone. Robert Capa was the only photojournalist who went with the first wave of troops to Omaha beach to capture nothing less than the very face of history in the making. This is yet again how decisive moments in photography bond with historical moments of reality.
Tony Vacarro developed his photographs in the helmets of soldiers on the battlefield!
Henryk Ross
Immediately after WWII, photography's task became horribly simple; to provide undeniable historical proof of Nazi atrocities; documenting crime scenes of unimaginable proportions. However, the relationship between photography and historical truth would become apparent in the travesty of Holocaust with the photographs.
Poland was home to many Jewish ghettos created by the Nazis. It was at one of these ghettos where Henryk Ross along with 164,000 other Polish-Jews were incarcerated for four years, until the ghetto was liquidated. Ross was a photographer who kept a unique record about what happened in his ghetto.
Amongst his many duties as one of the ghettos official photographers, Ross had to document the production of goods too, making him a propaganda photographer. Although he was forced to collaborate with the Germans, he was a photojournalist before the war. He knew the life of the Jews was becoming much worse, and so decided to document it with his camera. He photographed marriages, anniversaries, birthdays and religious ceremonies that happened in his ghetto.
Before the liquidation of the ghetto, Ross buried all his negatives in a garden in hope that they would survive, even if he didn't. Amazingly, both he and the negatives did and in 1961, his most incriminating pictures helped hang war criminal, Adolph Akman.
In two of the most decisive moments in history, August 6th & 9th 1945, the American's dropped the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Two flashes killed over 200,000 Japanse people in an instant. The American's took photographs of the aftermath the bombs had on these places, but wanted to depict physical damage rather than the human suffering of the Holocaust photographs. It was 7 years after the event when the US were no longer occupying Japan that images of human suffering from the atomic bombs were published there.
W. Eugene SmithThe Family of Man was an exhibition that opened in New York 1955. It was comprised of over 500 images that 273 amateur and professional photographer took from a collection of millions of photographs. It became the most popular photographic show of all time making it a very poignant moment in photo history. It is still open now, 50 odd years later with the same prints still there.
In 1947, top photojournalist such as Bresson, Capa, George Roger and David Seymour had created the photo agency Magnum. Formed as a cooperative, it declared that its photographers would retain their negatives and copyrights of their pictures.
Photo: U.S. Steel, Rankin W. Eugene Smith 1955
Smith is a photographer who had nocturnal characteristics, working through the early hours of the morning due to his addiction to amphetamines. He worked for Magnum as a photographer and capture over 7,000 images of which 2,000 were used for his photo-essay about the city of Pittsburgh. It was a project that was almost unpublishable and would've been extremely hard to exhibit.
In 1933, Henri Cartier-Bresson took a photograph in Paris, which created the 'decisive moment' in photography.
The decisive moment and the historical moment would form a bond, creating iconic images for the new type of photographer - the photojournalist. But how much can we actually trust a photograph in terms of its content and what it portrays?
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson is the godfather of photojournalism. From the early 1930s, he would wander the streets, snapping moments. His decisive moments transformed the face of photography.
His pictures were about being in the right place and the right time. He could step into a space and see the theatrical probabilities. He understood there was life in all space if you waited for that perfect moment. He was almost a stalker.
 |
| Behind the Gare St. Lazare Henri Cartier-Bresson 1933 |
Photographers pounce for the perfect moment because there is a capacity to interpret the flux of daily life, which contained elements of truth.
The interesting thing about photography is once you press that shutter, you will sense or have a visual orgasm if you know you've captured a perfect moment or not. The feeling you get when you look at a perfect moment, it almost looks surreal.
Bresson was a surrealist. The surrealist believes that there is a super-reality behind appearances, and occasionally it would reveal itself. All you had to do was wait for it to happen. With Bresson, when the action enters the space, he knows how to time it so it reaches its climax. That's the decisive moment.
Bresson was only able to capture such moments because of a revolutionary development in camera technology. The 'Leica' camera, launched in Germany in 1925 was compact, quiet and due to the advancements in lens technology it possessed, it gave to an all new style of instant photography.
According to Meyerowitz, the 'Leica' camera it allowed to you to be present in the moment and glide through the moment. This was due to the to the viewfinder being placed so far to the left side of the camera (unlike to traditional central position of SLR camera viewfinders) which allowed the other eye to be open, so you could observe the scene fully without you visioned being narrowed to just the viewfinder.
 |
| Dying Loyalist Soldier Robert Capa 1936 |
Hungarian-born photojournalist, Robert Capa, also used the 'Leica' camera for decisive moment photography, just like Bresson.
The photo shows the death of a Spanish civil war soldier being shot down by a bullet.
When the world war started 3 years later, Capa's photography brought fame, heroism and charisma to war photography. Working for Life magazine, he maintained that the first rule of photojournalism was the get close, and the second rule, to get closer. It earned him the reputation of being the world's greatest war photographer and it's first real celebrity.
People believe pictures, and photography has always been best at capturing reality. For instance, you passport ID is a photograph, not a painting. George Bernard-Shaun said "I would trade every painting of Jesus for one snapshot".
Tony Vacarro
Tony Vacarro photographed moments of the war on a daily basis, but working as an ordinary G.I./photographer. The army issued speed-graphic cameras to certain soldiers during WWII to document moments, but these camera were very large and time-consuming when switching film which forced Vacarro to find a more practical camera for his photographs. Unlike Capa, he couldn't afford a 'Leica' and settle for the Ardus C3.
 |
| Gott mit uns...Hemmerden Tony Vacarro 1945 |
As a photojournalist, he couldn't help but be close to the actions of war. When a German tank was bombed right in front of his eyes, it was photography and not survival that he was thinking about.
On D-Day, the greatest military operation in history took place, involving over 1,000,000 men on the allied side alone. Robert Capa was the only photojournalist who went with the first wave of troops to Omaha beach to capture nothing less than the very face of history in the making. This is yet again how decisive moments in photography bond with historical moments of reality.
Tony Vacarro developed his photographs in the helmets of soldiers on the battlefield!
Henryk Ross
Immediately after WWII, photography's task became horribly simple; to provide undeniable historical proof of Nazi atrocities; documenting crime scenes of unimaginable proportions. However, the relationship between photography and historical truth would become apparent in the travesty of Holocaust with the photographs.
Poland was home to many Jewish ghettos created by the Nazis. It was at one of these ghettos where Henryk Ross along with 164,000 other Polish-Jews were incarcerated for four years, until the ghetto was liquidated. Ross was a photographer who kept a unique record about what happened in his ghetto.
Amongst his many duties as one of the ghettos official photographers, Ross had to document the production of goods too, making him a propaganda photographer. Although he was forced to collaborate with the Germans, he was a photojournalist before the war. He knew the life of the Jews was becoming much worse, and so decided to document it with his camera. He photographed marriages, anniversaries, birthdays and religious ceremonies that happened in his ghetto.
 |
| Playing as Ghetto Policeman Henryk Ross 1943 |
Before the liquidation of the ghetto, Ross buried all his negatives in a garden in hope that they would survive, even if he didn't. Amazingly, both he and the negatives did and in 1961, his most incriminating pictures helped hang war criminal, Adolph Akman.
In two of the most decisive moments in history, August 6th & 9th 1945, the American's dropped the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Two flashes killed over 200,000 Japanse people in an instant. The American's took photographs of the aftermath the bombs had on these places, but wanted to depict physical damage rather than the human suffering of the Holocaust photographs. It was 7 years after the event when the US were no longer occupying Japan that images of human suffering from the atomic bombs were published there.
W. Eugene SmithThe Family of Man was an exhibition that opened in New York 1955. It was comprised of over 500 images that 273 amateur and professional photographer took from a collection of millions of photographs. It became the most popular photographic show of all time making it a very poignant moment in photo history. It is still open now, 50 odd years later with the same prints still there.
In 1947, top photojournalist such as Bresson, Capa, George Roger and David Seymour had created the photo agency Magnum. Formed as a cooperative, it declared that its photographers would retain their negatives and copyrights of their pictures.
Photo: U.S. Steel, Rankin W. Eugene Smith 1955
Smith is a photographer who had nocturnal characteristics, working through the early hours of the morning due to his addiction to amphetamines. He worked for Magnum as a photographer and capture over 7,000 images of which 2,000 were used for his photo-essay about the city of Pittsburgh. It was a project that was almost unpublishable and would've been extremely hard to exhibit.
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