Photojournalism

The Decisive Moment

Choosing exactly when to depress the camera's shutter has been at the heart of Photojournalism for decades. In terms of story telling, when the subject is in context to get across the message is critical. Is the subject in the frame, or just out of it? Is the message visible or not.

Henri Cartier Bresson created the phrase the decisive moment, when he took this picture (left) of a man stepping across a puddle. The image would not hold the context or message that the artist wanted to portray if not taken at exactly the right moment., for example, it would just have been a man stepping into or over a puddle.