The Decisive Moment is the title of what is widely considered to be the most influential photobook ever. When published it was thought as revolutionary because it advanced the idea that photography by virtue of being the only record of ephemeral moments stands for the essence of those events itself. Let that sink in, the picture is what happened. The book has been called a photographer’s Bible, a philosophical legacy and its author, Henri Cartier-Bresson, is revered.

There are 126 pictures in the book together with a lengthy 4,500-word preface. In the preface Henri outlines and reflects upon the life experiences that molded his photographic process. Unfortunately, he chose to pencil his ideas in the difficult, often pompous, style that galleries and art critics like using until today. “To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression. Inside movement there is a moment at which the elements in motion are in balance.”

What is he saying?

What Henri says is that is good to understand the reasons for taking a picture and to include in the frame things that help make clear what that reason is. That the best moment to take the picture is at the height of the action and to make sure that the picture is nicely composed. That’s his secret. Some people argue that his propositions are intrinsic to taking pictures and obvious to most everybody. Probably it is so, but Mr. Bresson was the first one to put it into words and to do it in a style that gave the concepts a lot of authority.