a holiday snapshot

F reminds: after some sweet & lazy time in the woods, don't forget to take a picture!

On thinking it over...

First visit to Gothenburg

Daddy's Old Shirt

F moment

Moments by Jacek Siwko

Photographer: Jacek Siwko, Poznan, Poland

Simply I don't understand moments. Why they are coming to meet us in a time we couldn't ever expect them. Why we can't catch them everyday while we are walking down the street. I'm trying to find it out. I hope to be close to the answer one day.

F moment

dianavision moments

Photographer: GC

the moments

I usually take pictures of people but never in pose. When I take my pictures I feel just a bit outside what’s happening even if I’m completely involved and absorbed by what ‘s in front of me. Many times I wait for the right moment, that happens mostly when people inside the picture area dispose naturally themselves, act, react in a way I feel “right”. I usually shoot then, and take average good pictures.

But when “the moment” is The One Moment I feel my heart like beating a little bit more frequently. I feel myself almost exposed. I fear to miss something if I don’t’ do something at that precise moment. I believe something may happen (people turning away, asking something to me, getting upset…). I sometimes have to get some little courage getting close to people taking their intimate moments. I react pressing the knob and usually nothing happens then, with my relief, but having gotten “the moment”. It’s usually a satisfaction in moods. It’s sometimes a satisfaction after developing the film. Only growing my feelings about life around me and consciousness about space dividing my camera from my subjects I get more frequent nice pictures. To have some new (for someone) ideas of “the moment” like the one I mean I warmly suggest to have a look at Richard Kalvar’s “Earthlings” edited by Flammarion.


About the picture I send you:
Those two men (due uomini) were alone and standing besides me with folded arms, sunglasses, looking straight in front of them. They looked like two mafia men or two body guards but there were too many people around walking or waiting for the bus (just there). I put my 90mm and crossed the street, meanwhile people disappeared for a moment walking by and just one woman decided to walk in, waiting for the bus as well. I raised the camera, moved a step back just to put her precisely besides the men and shot. In a second some other people got into the scene, the two men moved and everything disappeared.

It’s likely unnoticeable from the picture but that’s been a moment for me.

Photo and text: Paolo Saccheri

F-Moments

I had a discussion recently with a local artist about the decisive moment. This artist is a huge fan of Bresson and in his opinion my photos were lacking because they did not contain what Bresson’s photographs contained. To him that meant some specific event occurring spontaneously and the camera freezing time and motion to capture the observed event. Photographs without an event that depict only still objects could never portray the ‘moment.’ I argued that possibly my pictures of things and places could encapsulate a moment because of the feeling created by light, shadow, textures, composition and expectancy of what might occur just before or just after the shutter release.

After thinking and reading about this subject I’ve decided I agree with my friend. I believe there needs to be an event captured by the camera at a precise instant, however mundane, however simple to create a moment. Still pictures can display a feeling or mood or emotion but probably not a decisive moment except in the mind of the photographer because they know the story and circumstances and events surrounding the time of the exposure.

The photo above is an example of this…I was taking a picture of the fence because I liked the textures and light. But when I had the picture developed I noticed the woman’s head in the doorway, watching me, wondering why this crazy woman was perched outside her fence. This photo became a moment… Now that’s not to say I will no longer enjoy taking pictures of still objects and places, but like Beatriz, I think it is the unplanned, unexpected, lucky moments that present themselves unannounced that motivate me most as a photographer.

New York moments

1. The hat seller. New York City 2004

2. Central Park. New York City 2004

3. Under the Brooklyn Bridge. New York City 2004

4. Tiger Woods. New York City 2004

5. Ground Zero. New York City 2004

6. On the corner of west 13th St. and 9th Av. New York City 2004

7. Laurie. New York City 2004

8. D-train. New York City 2004

New York City. Love it or hate it. Either way, everybody has an opinion.
I think Frank Sinatra sums it up nicely:

I wanna wake up in a city
That doesn't sleep
And find I'm king of the hill
Top of the heap
These little town blues
Are melting a way
I'll make a brand-new start of it
In old New York
If I can make it there
I'll make it anywhere
It's up to you New York, New York

Photos by © Tommi Pirnes
Tommi is one of our invited photographers. I am very glad to see you here again/ulf

F Blog moments

Lately I have been thinking about what the "moment", or even the "descisive moment" is in a photograph. "Only the moment lives - and the moment is eternity" is the title of a film about the Swedish photographer Georg Oddner. It is a beautiful title.

I could make it easy and start to refer to the masters of photography and their interpretation of the moment. But the question is still there. What is the moment in photography?

The older I get, the harder I find it to answer such a question. So, what is your interpretation of the "moment", dear readers and authors of the F Blog. Let us try to find out more about it, exploring the wonders of photography without any ambition to find the "correct "answer to what the elusive moment is all about. You are welcome to send your contributions to Gruppo F Inbox. This project will be labelled "F blog moments.".

Stay tuned.

/ulf