Capturing the Moment-

Over the weekend I got to watch some of Creative Live with David duChemin.  At one point on Saturday he got to talking about “capturing the moment.”  David referenced the great Henri Cartier-Bresson and his focus on the decisive moment. In an interview with the Washington Post in 1957, Cartier Bresson said,”There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative.” This got me to thinking about my own photography and about pursuing photography in general.  Not only do we have to learn to operate our gear, about the fundamentals of photography, about lighting and about framing and composition, in order for our photographs to have the best impact we have to learn how to best capture a moment.  I began to think about different subjects that I have photographed and how challenging getting the “right” moment can be.  I have found that it takes a mixture of patience and skill, and sometimes, just plain dumb luck.

Take this photo, for example.  While in Kenya, we had the privilege of meeting Joyce and Samuel.  We were taken by our friend David of Red Rhino Orphanage to Joyce’s house for tea.  As we sat on small stools around a small fire and Joyce made our tea I began to take photos of Samuel, a child that Joyce cares for.  I really wanted to photograph Samuel and Joyce together, to capture the connection between this woman and child, a child who she cared for even though he was not her own.  I took about 100 frames leading up to this point.  Finally Samuel sat on Joyce’s lap and smiled, something he had not done for us yet.  Here, finally, I felt like I got the moment that I wanted,  a moment that best showed the connection between these two people who, despite their relative level of poverty, still live, love laugh and smile.

Sometimes, the moment is not so obvious.  In these three photos, taken in Camogli, Italy, of two fisherman, I wanted to show how these two older men, obviously good friends, played just like two children would.  They were sitting on a bench waiting for their boat to come to port so they could unload the days catch.  I shot a lot of frames as the two horsed around.  Which moment is best?  While I like all three photos, I can’t decide which one best shows my vision of the moment. At times, when I look back at these, I feel like all three belong together and collectively convey the moment the best.  At other times I’m not even sure that I was successful at all.

Is capturing the moment even something we get better at?  Is it a skill we can develop, like our use of lighting and composition?

How do you work on improving your skills when it comes to capturing a moment? Does capturing the moment with different types of photography change your technique?  These are questions I’m learning to answer.