Henri Cartier-Bresson was an influential photographer from the post WWII period. You have probably seen some of his work without knowing who took the photos or how he did it. He was a pioneer of street photography and also a war photographer in France and in China (before and after 1949).
He was interviewed many times about how he composed his photos. He didn’t edit his photos; he would compose them in the viewfinder and wait until everything was right and then he would release the shutter. This was, of course, before the time of digital where film and film developing was expensive and most importantly, time consuming. Nowadays, you can frame a photo and fire off 20 versions of the same scene and choose which ones pass muster and delete the rest. And even with that, you can always take the images and post process them so they look even better than when you took them using your Mark I eyeball to compose the shot.
From what I’ve read about Bresson, it was all about waiting for everything to come together. The light, the color of the sky, the subject matter co-operating with you and the camera. The Decisive Moment. I’ve always found it harder to photograph people than still life. Still life doesn’t complain when the picture doesn’t get their “good side”. Still life cooperates and can be more predictable than people.
So I took this from my room at the Grand Hyatt Incheon.
90 seconds before this shot formed, I saw how the sun was setting and how it looked with the clouds. It’s a play on emptiness, with the foreground of roads, parkland (that’s supposed to be landscaping) and the sky. It’s not a completely devoid scene, you can see people walking in the foreground and the sprinklers going off. And an airplane on approach to ICN. I cheated and took two shots. The shot before has the airplane blocking the sun. At this distance, any effect that would have with the photo would be minimal. What it would do would be to mute the scene of vibrant color even more. I like this one because the plane breaks up the emptiness; a metal tube full of people who will soon be reunited with loved ones or beginning (or ending) an adventure or a journey.
The Decisive Moment for this photo.