I wasn’t able to go to the first class of week one, so my experiences were only of the Thursday class. The Thursday class was a lot more theory-based than I believe the Tuesday one was, and focused on the larger view of photography and how it has grown as a medium.

My main takeaway from the week one class I attended was listening to “The decisive moment.”

(HENRI CARTIER BRESSON – The Decisive Moment 1973_2007, 2007). Cartier-Bresson discusses several elements of photography – some even somewhat contradicting each other – and tries to demonstrate that the world needs constant re-examining to try and see the world in new ways: “There’s no new ideas in the world there’s only new arrangement of things, Everything is new, every minute is new. That needs re-examining, Life changes every minute” (HENRI CARTIER BRESSON – The Decisive Moment 1973_2007, 2007). I found this quote in particular rather uplifting. The belief that any idea I may have from here on may have been done before, but it won’t be done through my lens. The way I experience it is uniquely mine, and so my work will be even if inspired by others. This was also particularly noteworthy considering the mimesis assignment, with the idea we are actively intending to copy another person’s work. This has inspired me more in the edits of the photos than in the production I have done so far, as I have begun to take deviances from the source material if I feel it benefits the composition. I have also particularly focused on my own decisive moments, trying to remain patient to line up the perfect shots when I believe they are upcoming or I can see them beginning to take shape. Whether that pans out in my work is yet to be seen, especially considering I have not picked particularly easy shots to replicate.

References:

Bt465 (January 7 2016) ‘HENRI CARTIER BRESSON – The Decisive Moment 1973_2007’ , YouTube website, Accessed 20 Jul. 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14ih3WgeOLs