Assignment three: The (in)decisive moment

‘The decisive moment is not a dramatic climax but a visual one: the result is not a story but a picture.’ (Swarkowski, 2007, p.5) 

‘You know it’s funny. You come to someplace new, and everything looks just the same.’ (Eddie in Stranger Than Paradise, Dir. Jim Jarmusch, 1984) 

Brief 

Create a set of between six and ten finished images on the theme of the decisive moment. You may choose to create imagery that supports the tradition of the ‘decisive moment’ or you may choose to question or invert the concept by presenting a series of ‘indecisive’ moments. Your aim isn’t to tell a story, but in order to work naturally as a series there should be a linking theme, whether it’s a location, event or particular period of time. 

Include a written introduction to your work of between 500 and 1000 words outlining your initial ideas and subsequent development. You’ll need to contextualise your response with photographers that you’ve looked at, and don’t forget to reference the reading that you’ve done. 

Initial Ideas

As a crucial part of this journey, it is advisable to frequently question oneself on how a particular idea or concept may be taken forward. The idea for assignment three came to me a while back just towards the end of ‘One Square Mile,’ while reflecting upon the possible future developments of that assignment; capturing the decisive moment was one of the ideas that I had penned down. At the moment though I had no idea of what my subject will be and when and how it will work out. At the end of Assignment One, my tutor Andrea recommended me to look at the Ravens series by Masahisa Fukase, which again was something that greatly influenced my thinking towards this assignment.

Since the lockdown, I have been religiously photographing birds on my terrace every evening, and over the months I not only came to understand their behaviour well but also gained clarity over time on what I wanted to do for this particular assignment. Progressing through the coursework and reading and researching other photographers helped a lot in finalising and clearing my mind. Besides some brilliant work that I was exposed to of various master photographers, their words left a great impression upon my mind as well. Some of them stayed with me even if the memory of their particular work faded as time passed, I never forgot their words that left an imprint on my mind. And those words became my inspiration as I progressed through the course and the eventual decision for the theme of this assignment.

My initial experimentation started with noticing and observing various species that visited my terrace. The only thing that I knew certainly at that moment was that I wanted to take this project further and not just to forget after writing it down as a potential future project. I started photographing crows as am really fascinated with this intelligent species, but there was nothing spectacular that came out of it, besides some funny moments and yes for sure decisive ones too, but I was not satisfied. I definitely knew that I want to take an ordinary subject and create something extraordinary. More details of my initial ideas can be found here.

“You can find pictures anywhere. It’s simply a matter of noticing things and organizing them. You just have to care about what’s around you and have a concern with humanity and the human comedy.”

(Elliott Erwitt)

Finalising ideas

Out of the 43 species of birds that visit my terrace, the most common ones are crows and pigeons. Others are neither as frequent visitors nor as numerous as them. In order to effectively study and document for an assignment, I needed enough images to build my concept. Crows are actually quite social birds and follow quite a hierarchy when it comes to food. They wait for the higher ups to finish and wait patiently for their turn. Pigeons, on the other hand, fight and bicker over food constantly. The choice of subject was clear as the chances of getting more action shots was way better with pigeons. Thus began my months of capturing pigeon action. More on my preparation can be found here.

“If all your life means to you is water running over rocks, then photograph it, but I want to create something that would not have existed without me.”

(White)

Research

A lot of learnings happened for me during this part of the coursework. While I really enjoyed looking at various photographers and their highly creative techniques, some impressed upon the mind more than the others towards inspiring this assignment. I really loved the work of Lois Greenfield, my research of whom can be found here and she really inspired me and somehow my top ten images remind me of her dancers. I really loved the work of Philip-Lorca diCorcia – his work was amazing and though I have not been able to incorporate that towards the final assignment, I definitely have a few shots in my contact sheets where I am reminded of his portraits. A.M. Worthington & Harold Edgerton‘s iconic work is inspiration for generations to come and to be inspired to capture a slice of their creativity is a feat in itself. I enjoyed freezing the action in the elaborate experimentation in exercise 3.1:Freeze.

I loved Wong Kar Wai’s opening scene in the Chunking Express and experimented with slow shutter speed with satisfactory results. Magnum Contact Sheets by Kristen Lubben and Chase Jarvis’s Crime scene contact sheets video were very helpful and effective in the editing process.

My entire research and logbook entries for this part of the coursework can be accessed here.

Execution

As I started to observe the common pigeon and progressed through the coursework at the same time, interesting things began to happen. Upon looking at the images that I captured of them, when the quick action of their ensuing struggles was sliced frame by frame in front of my eyes, a beautiful rhythm started to appear in terms of freezing their action in that tussle which was unseen or unobserved by the naked eye. What was fascinating was the illusions that the photographs resulted in. More often than not the photographs resulted in a gracefully orchestrated romantic dance sequence which seemed nothing like the actual act of a fight that the pigeons were engaged in.

This was interesting for me as the history of photography resulted in either capturing the honest truth like in the documentary photography of the yesteryears or in a completely altered image thanks to the era of enhanced digital manipulation. It excited me to capture something that was the honest truth but resulted in creating illusions of a result that was something totally different than what was actually taking place. This was almost magical for me. It reminded me of one of my favorite books – ‘The Art of War by Sun Tzu‘ – I decided to juxtapose the writings of this ancient Chinese military manuscript with my photographic sequence that I have chosen from the huge data that I collected. After all war is war, even if it is a completely different species, they employ various methods and techniques in order to successfully tackle their rivals.

Wanting to do justice to it, I decided to go for a photobook to record the documentation of some of my favourite sequences – as each one of them represented a decisive moment and to choose 6-10 out of them didn’t seem fair. So I am going to present the final 10 as a part of the brief but my real project is the photobook that I have created for this assignment.

Technical approach

The vast time window that I photographed this assignment over resulted in a lot of experimentation. With limited space on the terrace I experimented with very large zooms like the 800mm to 500mm to see which created results closest to my vision. Although each of the lenses that I experimented with resulted in some great variations, I personally loved the effect of the 800mm lens as it created just the right frame that resulted in creating a good bokeh that my favorite chosen images are from that lens. It also was a very tight frame as there is limited space on the terrace but the result was fantastic. It added to the magical rhythmic mood to the photographs.

I have experimented with various shutter speeds through this assignment – varying from slow movement shots to freezing crisp action shots. The same will be visible if you go through the photobook. I have also chosen to do this project in B&W to eliminate all possible distractions in the background and in order to be completely able to focus on the subject and its movements. A few shots have been left in the actual colour due to the fact that the light at that moment was magical due to the sun shining right after the rains and it added to the mood of the images.

All images have been shot using the following equipment:

• Camera – Canon 1DX Mark III
• Camera – Nikon D5
• Lens – Nikon 180-400mm f/4E TC1.4 FL ED VR AF-S
• Lens – AF-S NIKKOR 500MM F/5.6E PF ED VR
• Lens – Canon EF 800mm f/5.6L IS USM

All photographs are made in the shutter priority mode using natural light only. The camera was on a tripod while using the 800mm and the 180-400mm lens and handheld when shooting with the 500mm lens. I have converted the images into B&W for most of the part so as to eliminate distractions. There is one sequence in the book that I have kept in its natural colours as the light was magical right after the rains.

My reason for choosing B&W for this assignment was crucial for the fact that I wanted to emphasise on the geometry and form within the composition and that is the main reason for my choosing a tighter full frame. These are un-cropped images composed within the camera.

The Final Ten

Torn between choosing individual images from different sequences or presenting images from one particular sequence was a very tough choice, so I decided to do both. For the purpose of this assignment I present below my top ten images from one particular sequence. The PDF version of this presentation can be accessed here for better quality and details.

To open and view the PDF in the correct layout please open the PDF in Adobe Acrobat – Go to the Menu – View – Page Display – Choose Two Page View

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My take on the final assignment – A Photobook

As an extension for this assignment, I wanted to design a photobook of select image sequences, shot with different focal lengths and varying shutter speeds, capturing the pigeon’s movements and strategies to tackle a potential food rival. More information about this is inside the book. This book is like a learning log for me as this has work from the different time periods as I experimented with various shutter speeds and consists of a collection of varied images and interesting sequences.

To open and view the PDF in the correct layout please open the PDF in Adobe Acrobat – Go to the Menu – View – Page Display – Choose Two Page View

Contact Sheets

In the contact sheets you will find a whole lot of work and this is not even 1/10th of the actual data that I have collected. I have chosen only the relevant experimentation and final images here as its not possible to share the entire data. There are two sets of contact sheets – one that includes all the images and the other set only the chosen ones.

Reflections and thoughts upon future development of this project

This was an extremely valuable part of the coursework for me and I took a lot upon my plate to be honest. But the learning has been immense. I have various ideas on how to better the book beyond just the scope of this assignment into a viable publishing resource. Overall, I am quite happy with my performance but having said that, there are so many techniques and inspirations that I came across studying various artists and I hope to implement them in future assignments and projects. There is plenty to take forward, and greater learnings waiting to happen.

To wrap my thoughts or inspirations instrumental in shaping this project:

• Taking something ordinary and creating something extraordinary out of it.
• Observing and noticing things of interest amongst the banality that is around us.
• Capturing the decisive moment naturally and not by staging it.
• Capturing something that is not visible to the naked eye.
• Capturing the duality of the photograph in terms of capturing a reality that results in an illusion of something that it is not.

Bibliography

Tzu,S. (1999) The Art of War. (South Asia Editions) New Delhi:Rupa & Co.

Wells, L. (2015) Photography – A Critical Introduction. (5th ed.) New York: Routledge