Project 8: “The Decisive
Moment”: Tutor Feedback
Here, for once, praise for the quality of the images (The quality of these images jumps off the
page or screen. This was like looking at work of a completely different calibre
than that previously seen and I feel
these images are of a professional quality and you should be very pleased and
proud of them) and there were no technical issues: clearly the use of the
300mm prime lens with converter (the combination was used for all the images in
this project) has had a pronounced effect! My main issue now is how to get the
best out of my other lenses, because there is no way that I will be able to use
the prime lens for all my work!
Unfortunately there was a problem with my interpretation of the project,
however: the downside is the decisive
moment. This is not strong at all in these images. I think you need to look at
this again in terms of how does the decisive moment affect the rest of the
image – the other people /birds things etc. in the image. Having the bird alone
just doesn’t deliver that. It therefore appears that my view of the most
decisive moment in the sequence of images of the bird visiting the feeding
station as being when the nuthatch has the peanut in its bill (or possibly when
it picks up the nut) is wide of the mark. This isn’t a decisive moment at all:
instead: in bird terms it’s that stealing
food from another moment – or escaping from a predator etc. Unfortunately I
didn’t capture any images of birds escaping (or being caught by) predators
whilst I was searching for decisive moments: if I had, it’s unlikely that I
would have been able to capture a sequence of six (or even two!) satisfactory
images. My tutor kindly gave me a reference to a video clip of Cartier-Bresson
discussing his interpretation of “The Decisive Moment”, which helped somewhat
in my understanding of this phrase.
During my work leading up to the submission of Assignment 2 I captured a
couple of other sequences featuring birds that I considered using for this
project: these are discussed in other posts for Project 8. I would be
interested to know whether any images from either sequence could clearly be
described as representing “The Decisive Moment”.
To end on a positive note, my tutor commented that I think this has been a very good project for you in terms of
development and comprehending the differences that your equipment is capable
of. It must have been quite a revelation here in terms of the difference
between a zoom and the prime especially when it came to printing and your technique and work flow etc. have
developed well on this project.
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