the decisive moment

the decisive moment

by | Sep 28, 2017 | famous photographers, inspirational, life, photography, photography tips and tricks, tips and tricks

Henri Cartier-Bresson coined the phrase the decisive moment, particularly in relation to his street photography he became so famous for. Photography is all about the decisive moment, that split second in time in which the photographer chooses to create the image. It’s difficult to teach someone when to press the shutter release button to create an image, the decisive moment comes intuitively. Photographers have to learn to trust our gut as to when that decisive moment that creates magic is and react instinctively.

The other day I went for a walk on my own at sunset. I had been filming the new hovercraft in Portsmouth that runs from Portsmouth to Ryde on the Isle of Wight and it looked like it would turn out to be the perfect evening. It did and people came down to the beachfront to enjoy the sunset. The light kept getting better and better and I kept shooting. As I was about to leave I noticed a man in a turban looking out over the channel. His profile was striking and his pose almost regal, majestic. I shot a few frames of him excited about the shot. I shoot with both eyes open, a skill that took practice to perfect. The benefit of doing it is that you can still use the peripheral vision in the eye not looking through the camera’s viewfinder. I noticed two young women pushing a pram walking into the background and waited for the decisive moment in which magic is created…

 

coming home

coming home

'Coming Home - Returning White Storks to the Land' is a short film about the relationship between Dorette, her...

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holding my breath

by | Feb 16, 2014 | famous photographers, inspirational, life, photography

It’s Friday the 13th today which means that there are a lot of superstitious people holding their breath around the world!

I love free diving. The peace I feel underwater is comparable to no other place. The feeling of weightlessness, of floating and drifting, of gliding with a flick of the fins. I don’t dive for depth. I dive for the challenge of breath hold. An underwater tourist dolphin style.

Cape Town is famous (notorious?) for her great white sharks. We dive in false bay, home of the ‘submarine’, and yes, I do think about them and hope that they’re somewhere else chasing seals.

To overcome my fear of them I went shark cage diving in Gans Baai. Controversy about shark cage diving and sea sickness aside (10 foot swell out at sea) it was an awesome experience. They swim so close to the cage that you can reach out and touch them. Don’t.

I was fascinated by them, not afraid of them. Their languid gracefulness is beautiful. From the safety of a cage. I bought a disposable underwater camera for fun to shoot underwater pics of these big fish. It disappeared from the boat. Nice.

I stumbled across Edition Fifty Fathoms, “The only art magazine of underwater photography”, on Facebook today and saw an incredible photograph taken by free diver photographer Fred Buyle. The photograph is of a free diver reaching out to touch a shark. Not a great white but a very large tiger shark.

I’m fascinated. I’m even more fascinated by the documentary film about Fred on Vimeo titled ‘He swims with sharks’.

Breathless.