My Single Element

When I look at Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare (See Fig 1) the point in the image that I find my eye returning to again and again is the leading leg and foot that is about to enter the water.  Perhaps it is the anticipation of what will happen next, we don’t know how deep the water is and so it could be a very shallow puddle or something quite deeper, what is going to happen to the man?

In that regard, the strange thing is that it is the information that is not in the image that I find stimulating my imagination.  One can study the wood lattice the man is stepping off, but one still cannot be sure how deep the water is.  There is no context to understand what the man is doing, why he is even stepping off.  This complete absence of information makes the image for me.  If the shot was wider or we could see to the right then we could see where the man is running to, perhaps how deep the water is, and I think this would remove much of the magic.

Perhaps then, the magic of the decisive moment is not what can be seen in the image, but the knowledge that this is just one instance in time and the imagination’s ability to envisage what might happen next.

Figures

Figure 1. Cartier-Bresson, H. (1932). Place de l’Europe. [image] Available at: http://pro.magnumphotos.com/Asset/-2S5RYDI9CNRQ.html [Accessed 16 Apr. 2017].