Henri Cartier Bresson - The Decisive Moment

"The art or practice of communicating news by photographs" This is the definition for Photojournalism, it means to take pictures of specific events when it is in the decisive moment to give a story behind it and describe what is going on in the photograph.


Henri Cartier Bresson was very well known as he was one of the first photographers to take decisive moment shots to be used in journalism, his decisive moment shots (In the moment shot) were so incredible he'd been given the title of "The godfather of photojournalism".

The use of 'in the moment' shots was significant to journalism and very useful as it could tell many stories through a single photo, which opened peoples eyes to many possibilities of which the event could all be about.
Leica AG was developed in Germany 1925 it was a 35mm lens giving the chance to have high quality zoomed pictures. Leica has had a profound influence on our view of the world we live in and Bresson used this to his advantage when taking decisive moments.

Henri Bresson used the decisive moment technique, this technique is largely used now a days however not when he was alive. The use of this technique was to bring an image alive, to show the perspective of a still image and form many visual ideas of what the photo could mean. This was also used for people who were not as literate as others as they can look at the picture and discover hundreds of possibilities of what the photo could signify.

I find this a brilliant technique to use and I am fascinated with the stories and visual ideas that can come from a single image, although this is a brilliant way to get an image it can be very time consuming as waiting for that 'decisive moment' could come at any moment, having the knowledge and concentration when taking the picture is key to getting a 'perfect' photograph.