You know that moment when you take a photo and everything just clicks into place? You're walking down the street and suddenly spot a beautiful bird—one you've never seen before—taking off from a balcony. You decide to try capturing it. You point your camera (regular or phone) and take a shot. The first picture doesn’t really work out, and the second one isn’t great either. But on the third try—click! Everything falls into place: the sunlight hits the bird just right, the background turns out soft and pleasantly blurred with colors that enhance the image, and the composition comes together perfectly, with a beautiful depth of field and layers. In short, you’ve got an amazing photo, straight to National Geographic.
That moment when all the elements align perfectly for you and the shot is called “The Decisive Moment.”
A strong composition and pressing the shutter at precisely the right split second to capture the cyclist in the perfect spot within the frame (and as mentioned, at the right time = the decisive moment). Photo by: Henri Cartier-Bresson.
The term "The Decisive Moment" is most closely associated with the French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, whose 1952 book bore this title in its English translation. In fact, it is difficult—if not impossible—to talk about street photography without mentioning Cartier-Bresson, who greatly advanced and shaped the field during the years he was active.
According to Cartier-Bresson:
"Photography is not like painting. There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative." (Wikipedia). That moment is “The Decisive Moment.”
"Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare" (1932) – Henri Cartier-Bresson
"The Decisive Moment," as I see it, is truly that split second in which, thanks to the camera, we have the ability to freeze the reality around us at a critical and sometimes dramatic instant that will never return. It is the climax of the story we are witnessing.
The crucial element of timing—so essential for capturing that fleeting decisive moment—is joined by the artistic and visual aspect of photographic and artistic creation in general. This comes through the arrangement of a composition that is visually engaging and draws the viewer’s eye—a composition that is simply pleasant to look at. Therefore, the decisive moment is a combination of precise timing and strong composition.
Exactly! So we’ve broken down what makes the decisive moment into two key components:
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Precise Timing – Capturing a fleeting moment that will never return.
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Engaging Composition – Structuring the image in a visually compelling way.
That precise timing of a moment that will never return is often difficult to anticipate, since we usually cannot predict what will happen in the situation or event we are witnessing. Composition, on the other hand, can be anticipated. That is, we can prepare a beautiful and interesting composition — even one without any action — and hope or wait for something unique to happen within it later on.
In this lesson, we will learn a technique for capturing “decisive moments” that can help many of us catch those unique and beautiful moments in the city. Many photographers walk around the city looking for special moments to capture. That’s all well and good—and I’m all for it. In general, the more we’re out and about, wandering and searching for interesting and unique moments to photograph, the more of those moments we’ll actually catch (and we’ll also improve our photography skills through this practice).
Another option for capturing beautiful, interesting, and authentic moments of people in the city is, instead of walking around looking for those moments, to let the moments come to us. And how do we do that? By setting up an interesting composition and then waiting for something to happen within our frame—within the stage we’ve prepared.
Henri Cartier-Bresson shot on film, so every click of the shutter had to be carefully considered. But today, in the digital age, we have the ability to shoot with virtually no limitations. This works in our favor (aside from the task of editing and selecting which photos to keep, which has become more challenging). We can take many photos with the hope that at least one (or more) will turn out well.
Photographing the same scene multiple times increases our chances of capturing that decisive moment of the situation. In this case, we see the background—the set—the composition we've arranged: an eclectic building, part Bauhaus, part modern. What we’re looking to add is some kind of action or event that will bring added value and interest to the image. So we wait, we observe, hoping something will happen. A car passes by, then a motorcycle, then a man running next to the building—but it’s still not quite it.
Then, a red Fiat 500 enters the frame, adding a splash of color and creating a connection to the eclectic building—old and new. And in that same split second, a motorcycle and a pair of pedestrians also appear. They all align harmoniously within the frame, and just like that—a decisive moment is born.
Another example:
A photo of an empty frame.
Taking multiple shots of the same composition while waiting for that one decisive moment to occur.
"Choosing the current photo based on the cyclist’s position in the frame (according to the rule of thirds)."
Decisive moments don’t always have to be dramatic. A decisive moment, as we've discussed, is the combination and culmination of several elements coming together at a very specific point in time — that moment when everything just falls into place.
Mary Poppins lands on Allenby St.
So if we try to summarize the method I'm describing here:
🔹 First – we create a frame.
Imagine a theater stage, and you're designing the set, the backdrop for your play. The frame is your stage.
🔹 Then – we wait.
The event – the actors and the special moment – you can't always predict in advance. But if you are patient, the decisive moment might suddenly appear within the frame you've set up.
This is exactly what makes this method so powerful in street photography – it combines control with surprise, preparation with spontaneity.
A recommended technique is to stand on one side of the sidewalk and photograph toward the opposite side, using the lines of the sidewalk to frame your shot from the bottom.
Once the first stage is behind us, we move on to the next stage – the waiting stage. This is when we wait for the "actors" of our scene to enter the frame and, so to speak, complete the picture. Sometimes the wait can be long until someone walks through your frame, and even then, it may not always work out for various reasons. But if you wait patiently and take several shots, the chances are high that at least one of them will turn out well.
So, as we said: first, find a beautiful frame and then wait for a passerby or passersby. When those passersby walk through your frame, it’s important not to look at them directly, but only through the screen or viewfinder of your camera. If you look at them outside of the camera, it will likely cause them to look back at you, and then the authentic moment is lost. They become aware of you and the camera, which can ruin the candid shot you were hoping for.
First, we set up the frame and then wait for something to happen on our “stage.” In this case, the decisive moment is the combination of the character entering the frame, their position within it, and their relationship to the other figure in the image — the heart-shaped street art.
Another example of setting up the frame and waiting for a passerby. Here, the cyclist — by entering the frame and becoming part of the story — "brings to life" the street art, which appears to be looking at her.
Points to consider when taking photos or when selecting them later at home:
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Subject Placement in the Frame – Make sure the person (or people) are positioned within the frame in a way that maintains visual balance between the different parts of the composition. Their location should support the overall harmony of the image rather than disrupt it.
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Upside-down V Shape in the Legs
When the legs form an upside-down V shape, they convey motion — reflecting the real moment in which they were captured. When the legs are not in this position, they may appear stiff, unnatural, and mostly not aesthetically pleasing. They fail to express the dynamic quality we're aiming for — the fleeting moment caught in time.
The moment the character — the "actor" — walks through your frame, I recommend taking several photos and later choosing the most successful one. Ideally, this would be the one where:
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The legs form an upside-down V shape, indicating movement and capturing the fleeting moment.
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The subject is positioned well within the frame, aligning with compositional principles like the rule of thirds.
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The subject doesn’t block or obscure other important elements in the frame.
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The overall composition remains balanced and visually engaging.
This approach increases your chances of capturing that decisive and compelling moment.
Another example:
Setting up a background
Waiting for a character to enter the frame. Take several photos and then choose the best one — the one where the subject is well-positioned within the frame and their legs are in an inverted V shape.
And another example:
1. Setting up the background
2. Waiting for a character to enter the frame
3. Continuing to wait and photographing characters in the frame
4. Searching for that Decisive Moment
5. After Processing the Image
(Opening parentheses)
A Note on Image Editing
As you’ve probably noticed, the vast majority of my images are edited and processed. In fact, the act of photography doesn’t end the moment we press the shutter button.
There are two very important and meaningful stages that come after:
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Editing and selecting which images are good and which are less so.
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Processing and refining the good ones to enhance and elevate them.
Image processing includes working with exposure — brightening or darkening the photo — adjusting contrast, richness and saturation of colors, cropping to remove less relevant elements from the frame, straightening the image, and more.
(Closing parentheses)
And another example:
Staying in one place allows us to observe how the waves crash against the breakwater. You create a frame and wait for the additional “actor” — the wave — to enter the scene.
Sometimes, finding the decisive moment happens by chance — the more time we spend outside with a camera, the greater the chances we'll capture more and more decisive moments.
