Re: [Leica] Indecisive Moment

["Robert G. Stevens" <robsteve@hfx.andara.com>]

Chandos:

I think I was not clear in my post, or you did not understand it.  What I
was trying to say is a fast motor will not get you a shot, but pushing the
button at the right time will.  Below are examples of a single frame taken
at the decisive moment.  The basketball was done with an M6 and a Noctilux,
while the calf roping was an R8 and 400mm 2.8 at F4, follow focusing
manually of course. You be the judge.

http://home.iSTAR.ca/~robsteve/photography/images/Misc/Calf-Rope.jpg

http://home.iSTAR.ca/~robsteve/photography/images/CIAU/western-42.jpg

I would also suggest you try some sports photography before you make a
statement like "Photographers *make* photographs; they don't 
*record* them.  Unlike the majority of this list, I actually try to get out
and take pictures, rather than have phlisophical discussions about doing
it.  As Nike says " Just do it".

You may have however got my post confused with the one from somebody that
suggested we use a canon digital stills camera and just record the whole
scene.  If this was the case, we are both stating the same argument for
creating a picture by knowing when to press the shutter so all the elements
are there.


As for high speed video and digital cameras, they just do not have the
quality of a 35mm slide shot using 100 asa film.


Regards,

Robert


At 06:29 PM 8/15/99 -0400, you wrote:
>I would submit that "decisive moment" has in this passage been emptied of 
>any significant meaning.  If I understand Bresson correctly, "decisive" is 
>in his usage bi-valent.  It means on one hand the "moment" in which a set 
>of circumstances/subjects converge to present the photographer with a sort 
>of aesthetic *mis en place*--the constituents of a moment freighted with 
>potential significance and, on the other, the photographers *decision* to 
>capture it as a conscious expression of his or her vision--a triumph, as it 
>were, of the artistic will.  Photographers *make* photographs; they don't 
>*record* them.
>
>The fellow whose advice appears below could as easily mount a high res. 
>digital camera--or a series of them--say, on a ball court, *tape* the whole 
>bloody game, and then survey the footage until he finds a frame (scene) 
>that best exemplifies his notion of an "important" moment.  Technology 
>permitting, what's to stop one from moving directly to print with that 
>image.  Are we comfortable with the notion that this represents 
>"photography" as we understand it.
>
>When does a 35mm cease being a still camera and become, instead, a cine 
>camera--how many FPS before we all become cinematographers?
>
>It bothers me considerably to see this debasing of a useful way to think 
>about our art/craft.  One must grant the need for visual *reportage*, but 
>I'm not sure that Bresson would recognize the sentiment below as 
>'photographic' in its sensibility.
>
>Chandos
>
>
>At 01:39 PM 8/15/1999 -0700, you wrote:
>>Robert Stevens wrote:
>> >
>> > Ted:
>> ><snip> If you press the shutter just prior to the decisive
>> > moment and capture it, the few frames after that will be past it.  If you
>> > just hold down the button hoping to capture the decisive moment, you will
>> > probably miss it because at six frames per second, the exposures are too
>> > far apart.  He later started using a high speed Canon F1 which does 15fps
>> > and he says if he presses the shutter at the right time, he may get two
>> > good shots of the decisive moment.  After attending his seminar, I
tried my
>> ><snip>
>
>
>
>Chandos Michael Brown
>Assoc. Prof., History and American Studies
>College of William and Mary
>
>http://www.wm.edu/CAS/ASP/faculty/brown
>
>