Shoot 1. candid approach first applying Cartier-Bresson and his decisive moment.

The aim for this first photoshoot would be to take candid images, capture the moment as it is, most likely adding some of Henry Cartier-Bresson’s decisive moment to my images, the idea that each moment we are living can be capture at the right time, the idea of hunting for people without killing them, you are searching for a perfect place to capture the deal image. The aim is to avoid making your images staged, you just want to show up and take some photos, photos that aren’t planned and just captured on the spot. To try and recreate these images but in my own way, I’m going to go through town and observe people and see if any of them capture my eye, it may be more difficult to take some images of people in town as its quite small and people may spot me and look in direction of the camera which defeats the whole aim of the photos. I think something that might help me is instead of taking one photo of the scene in front of me, I should take multiple so that I have a selection of choice and then choose the best image for my project. When in town I could look for anything that is colourful that way my images aren’t just colourless and lifeless. I do like how many of Vivian Maier’s are in black and white, but her coloured images are powerful in showing meaning. The way that the people in the photo below are all wearing yellow, which doesn’t seem to be planned, it shows that everyone is different, but people do have similarities and similar interests. Town would be the best place for me to capture some images as its always quite busy and the is always something gong. I would need to try and go to town before it gets dark as none of Vivian’s images were taken at night time. town would also be busier during the day. 

This photo from Vivian Maier is in colour and follows a colour pattern, the main people in focus are wearing the same colour, yellow, this makes them stand out but it’s also quite unusual on how they are matching, this is most definitely staged but the way that the models aren’t paying attention to Maier camera makes it look a lot better. Each model is focused on something different which helps to see that they aren’t together, they are just minding their own business, although in this image the two males seem to be wearing the same trousers with the exact same socks which could indicate that they know each other but the idea of the image is for us to work out. It would be a really big coincidence if they didn’t know each other, however in this case I believe that they know each other but they are not bothered about how they are dressed, this seems to be normal to them, just walking round town not really bothered about the people around them, as you would do normally which shows us that what they are wearing isn’t what makes the image powerful it does help to make the image more vibrant and eye catching but that’s not the main idea of this image. It’s the idea that its a candid image, the models aren’t aware that they are being photographed therefore they are posing for an image, and if they were to pose it would change the whole idea and point of view on the image.

This image is quite powerful as it has two females staring at the camera, they are quite blurry and out of focus and the 5 men on the other side of the road are all wearing suits and look like businessmen, the lady on the right looks quite angry and judgemental whereas the other women on the left looks worried or scared, it could be a portray of events, men seem to be fearless standing on the pavement talking to each other while the ladies are looking worried and concerned or even just mad that they are in their view. “A photograph is a secret about a secret,” Diane Arbus said. In the case of Vivian Maier, the photographer was a secret, too. This could suggest that Maier’s images were quite secretive, their real meanings were never exposed, while doing some research I’ve noticed that Vivian Maier has been through some type of abuse and tends to keep very secretive and doesn’t really share anything about herself to anyone.

Plan:

Go into town and take pictures like Vivian Maier, waist level and catch people off guard, making sure they aren’t looking at the camera but at me or anywhere else. Although Vivian lives in a big city crowded with people and all these images were taken around 1949 which makes her images very old fashioned most people would wear different clothes now as generations change and people.

try not to look for things that stand out and just take photographs of things around you.

Although if colours are present they could make good images. (colours people are wearing, different types of clothes)

decisive moment (Henry Cartier-Bresson)

keep images in colour