{"id":27071,"date":"2024-01-10T05:00:37","date_gmt":"2024-01-10T10:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=27071"},"modified":"2024-01-09T22:25:29","modified_gmt":"2024-01-10T03:25:29","slug":"the-decisive-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/10\/the-decisive-moment\/","title":{"rendered":"The Decisive Moment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writing about Biden yesterday left a black cloud over my soul.\u00a0 I must purge it with something less depressing.\u00a0 So, I did some looking around for things that would cheer me up.\u00a0 And I found this guy Alex at a YouTube channel called the \u201cThe Photographic Eye.\u201d\u00a0 He\u2019s a Brit and says he\u2019s been a professional photographer for about 30 years.\u00a0 Which is fine and all that but what I found was a video he had called \u201cTrain Your Mind To See Photos Everywhere<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

So, the video is a talk on how to approach everyday items and circumstances to look for the interesting photographs hidden there.\u00a0 And the images he provides as examples are mostly very mundane things; inside a city bus, a table with a partially unfinished jigsaw puzzle, details inside a restaurant or a construction site.<\/p>\n

And the images are indeed mundane and some of them had no appeal for me as photographic subjects and yet others made me stop and look and think, \u201cYes, that would be an interesting shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

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SONY DSC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As a second exercise he discussed the classic idea of \u201cthe decisive moment.\u201d\u00a0 Even a lazy individual such as myself has read enough about photography to have heard about the French street photography pioneer Henri Cartier-Bresson and his idea of identifying an optimal or even a unique moment when a photograph reveals some dramatic aspect frozen in time. But here Alex advises us to take this same idea and translate it into a mundane environment.\u00a0 Maybe a train station or a street corner.\u00a0 But by studying the dynamic nature of the people in that environment you may find the moment when this situation provides an optimal chance for an interesting image.\u00a0 Here he says that the skill is to tune into the rhythm of the location and stop ignoring the details that we usually tune out when on a street or in a supermarket.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And his third exercise he recommended that a photographer keep a book or even capture some ideas with his phone, where he writes down ideas for future photographs.\u00a0 Maybe it is a place you saw as you were driving or maybe it\u2019s a thing you saw on tv or in a book.\u00a0 His point was that ideas often occur when you haven\u2019t got a camera or you haven\u2019t got the time but if you can build up a list of ideas you can plan an expedition or even an indoor shoot around your neighborhood or even in your house.\u00a0 But as long as you jot it down you have the chance of following up on this good idea, instead of forgetting it again.<\/p>\n

And so, these exercises are away to develop your sense of what makes an interesting picture and at the same time to make photography an everyday activity and make it an active rather than passive activity and finally to make it fun.<\/p>\n

And in that final aspect, his advice worked.\u00a0 I grabbed my camera with my macro lens and started stalking around my living room looking for juxtapositions with nick-nacks, books and random household articles.\u00a0 And before I knew it, I was having a lot of fun.\u00a0 Now I haven\u2019t reviewed any of these shots in my post processing software so I have no idea whether I\u2019ll still think they were worthwhile once I have a chance to look at them critically. \u00a0But I can say that my excitement about taking some shots was higher than it\u2019s been since the leaves fell off the trees this fall.<\/p>\n

So, to hell with Joe Biden and all of his rot.\u00a0 If we let him destroy this country then we probably deserve it.\u00a0 But I sure as hell won\u2019t spend every waking hour thinking about it.\u00a0 Life\u2019s too short.\u00a0 I\u2019d rather spend it looking for the decisive moment.\u00a0 Or maybe just getting a really nice butterfly shot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writing about Biden yesterday left a black cloud over my soul.\u00a0 I must purge it with something less depressing.\u00a0 So, I did some looking around<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1263,3],"tags":[461,2553],"class_list":["post-27071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","category-photography","tag-photography","tag-photography-review"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Decisive Moment - Orion's Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/10\/the-decisive-moment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Decisive Moment - 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