Decisions

When it was announced that the United Kingdom was going into lockdown and we would all face restrictions as to where we could go and for how long, I was beginning to think about what I would be able to do to capture the Decisive, or indecisive, Moment.

I was aware that doing an assignment on the Decisive Moment, would be difficult, but doing it when you would not be able to go very far or for long, and certainly without being able to just sit and wait for something to happen that you could capture, that’s another level of difficulty.

Although I missed the EYV online meeting where this assignment was discussed I did read through the presentation slides and one word leaped out at me. Location.

I am lucky that I have a front and back garden. The plants in both are not spectacular but they were something to explore. Over a day or two I noticed that there were several insects, both the crawling and flying kinds in the garden, even bees seemed to be making an appearance. Possibilities.

I also have a communal open space at the front of my property that is shared with the neighbours. There is a large tree in that space which was just starting to bud. Another possible subject.

And then there are my neighbour’s cats. Our garden, and sometimes house, is a place that they feel safe to wander and explore.

In the end it turns out that the difficult bit with the assignment, was not finding things to photograph, but deciding what to use. In total I took over 240 photographs while working on this assignment. Now I must figure out which series of images to use.

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So, the first set of images is Jumpin Jack above. Jack is one of my neighbour’s cats and often can be seen wandering around my garden. On this day I was working in the kitchen when I noticed him. I picked up my camera, stepped out the backdoor. Jack noticed me but did not seem worried. Instead, he paused to drink some water out of a dirty container and then sauntered up the garden. As he did, I was hoping that he would decide to climb the fence.

Keeping my camera focussed on him I was able to trigger a burst of shots as he leaped up the fence and then over it.

When I looked at the images I had caught, the second in the sequence, left me slightly disappointed. Jack himself was slightly blurred. It was not until I realised that the blur is fine because it shows a sense of movement, and that is fine in a shot like this.

I think the second, third and final images in the sequence could stand on their own as examples of the Decisive Moment.

For this reason, I’m leaning towards using this sequence for my assignment submission.

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The second sequence of images that I am considering was the first that I completed.

At the time I started taking photographs in my garden, the grass had not been cut since the end of last year. The grass was filled with daisies and dandelions. All of which were at various points of growth.

Some planters had early flowering plants as well as one of our wall baskets.

The other wall baskets were not quite barren but home to a small number of dandelions. As these grew and blossomed over the course of several days, I was given the chance to capture them.

In my back garden there are a small number of plants flowering, the red one captured my attention one morning and I decided to photograph them. Within some of them, dew was still protected from the sun, on other snails were seeking sustenance.

Finally, there was my friend, the bird. Over a few days I had noticed it hopping around the garden gathering worms and bits of dry grass. Keeping my camera in the kitchen I kept an eye out for my feathery visitor, and one morning spotted them. I managed to capture several images but the one above is my favourite because they are almost looking at me.

So how does these tie in with the (in)decisive moment. Initially I would have said they were indecisive moments. The flowers were there, the bird had visited on several occasions. They were not caught at a moment in time that would not happen again or which I would be lucky to capture again. At least that is how I saw them initially.

Reflecting on them I realised that they were an example of the decisive moment. The dew drops wouldn’t necessarily be in the exact same positions again, the snail would not be positioned where it appears as if it is looking at the camera, the bird wouldn’t be at that point nor looking at the camera again (grass would be cut depriving it of nesting material, another bird or animal could kill it), the flowers would bloom and die, the dandelion seeds would be dispersed by the wind. These are moments that once gone, may be gone for ever.

Like the film of John F Kennedy being shot. It exists and shows us a moment of historical importance, we can watch it over and over, we can recreate it in films and pictures, but we cannot capture those exact images, those exact moments ever again.

The captions attached to each image are based on something I wrote in my sketchpad while working on the assignment and trying to whittle the images down for the final submission.

Lockdown has provided an opportunity for reflection, on the past, on the future, on goals, on what is important. Some of those reflections have made their way into my sketchbook and I will include them in a different post in my learning log.

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The sequence of images above was developed with the intent to follow the life cycle of the dandelions in the wall basket by my front door. Over the space of a week, I was able to capture of them growing, flowering, developing seeds and dying back.

As with the previous set of images, I think these illustrate the Decisive Moment for the same reasons.

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Finally, cats. My neighbour has four cats. Millie is the one most curious when she spots you, she is always interested in what you are up to and is happy to let you photograph her.

In the first image above, I spotted her preparing to jump onto the roof of the garages that run alongside our property. Unfortunately, I missed the actual moment she leaped.

The next four images are just Millie being curious about what I was doing, she really is quite nosey.

The fifth image shows Charlie licking his paws. I had spotted him on our shed roof and captured several photos from the bedroom window as he cleaned himself one morning. One of the images, the one above shows him holding his paw in an almost human way, just before he licked it.

The sixth image is of Billy. I spotted him wandering in the garden and managed to capture him as he leaped up and over the fence. The image I would have liked to use shows just his hind paws and tail as he disappears down the other side. Unfortunately, I was too far away for the shot to be usable, his tail is just a little bit too blurry.

The final image is of Jack, drinking out of a bucket of dirty rainwater.

I think some of these images could be used for the assignment but now I do not have enough of them to produce the number required for the submission.

What I submit for assignment 3 is going to be one of the first three sequences, it’s just a case of deciding which.