Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare
One of the most recognised photographs in the world. Bresson’s image epitomises ‘The decisive moment’ that he ‘invented’ & made his own.
Cartier-Bresson, Henri/1932/Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare/© 2018 Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum Photos, courtesy Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris
For me, this image is all about the tiny gap between the man’s right foot, and the reflection. He appears to be suspended just above the water, but we know that this isn’t the case and that a fraction of a second later his foot impacts with the water, disrupting its mirror-like quality. In our minds we play out the moments that follow time and again. How the water reacts, how it initially parts and then engulfs the shod foot. A moment later and we would be studying a very different image.
The position of the figures body intimates the direction of travel, and the ripples emanating from the makeshift ladder, appear to substantiate this.
This single relatively tiny piece of the image encapsulates the futility of hoping against hope that the inevitable will not happen. It did happen! But HCB was able to time his shot so as to capture the last moments as it were, like Capa’s image, The Falling Soldier.
CAPA, R./1936/THE FALLING MAN/GILMAN COLLECTION, PURCHASE, ALFRED STIEGLITZ SOCIETY GIFTS, 2005/© INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY / MAGNUM PHOTOS
HCB has been exceptionally clever in ‘creating’ a context in which the image was shot (https://vimeo.com/106009378). Clearly untrue! Yet this has added to the ‘folklore’ of this image, and has launched a genre almost single-handedly.
Rinko Kawauchi’s images come at the ‘Decisive Moment’ from the opposite direction. She looks for the situation that is already happening (albeit in a much slower way) and she then tunes into it and captures the beauty. Her work is about the entire image, whereas often HCB’s work focuses on a point(s) within the image. Her ‘Decisive Moments’ have more contemplative approach.
I see! 