 Timing in photography is everything, trip the shutter too early and the photograph hasn't happened, trip it too late and the moment has passed. But if you're on point and you trip it at just the right second then everything, everything aligns and you have photographic gold. But how do you know when that moment is? How's it? How's it? I'm sure at some point you have heard the phrase the decisive moment. This holy grail of photography when all of the stars align and you assume Henry Cartier-Bresson like status. It's so tricky to find because of course if it would, if you could produce it on demand then of course all of us would be like Henry Cartier-Bresson. Great photographers who just tend to get lucky again and again and again. The reason that Henry Cartier-Bresson got so lucky again and again is because he understood how to align those stars in the best possible way to improve his chances of creating those photographs. And this is what you're going to learn today is the elements that you can play with, the elements that you can put together to increase your own chances of hopefully one day creating a photograph that is as great as a Cartier-Bresson. These are not just techniques that are only applicable to the street photographer, they can then be employed in most genres of photography to help you elevate your images into something better. Over the years the decisive moment has built up a mistake and today we're going to take away some of that mistake so you understand the processes that you can put in place to improve the chances of you getting those golden photographs. William Shakespeare said that all the world is a stage and we are merely players and this is of course extremely true and photography is no exception. To start improving your chances of getting those decisive moments you need to decide where the stage is on which life is going to play out, it's at, it's play. Cartier-Bresson didn't just wander around taking random pictures and what have you, he found places you know events where he could set up the image and allow the people in them to bring their own humaneness to the photograph. Think about the very famous picture of you know the cyclist at the bottom of the steps. It is unlikely that Cartier-Bresson was walking up, came to the top of these steps, there was a cyclist going past, he pulled up his lycra and there was a picture. It's, I doubt it happened like that. If I'm wrong it will hold up my hand but he no doubt saw the wonderful composition, the framing, everything in that photograph and when it would be great if we can have somebody just go through that space. So he set up the stage and waited and this brings us on to the second aspect of what you really kind of would like to work on and this is a sense of timing and anticipation. For a lot of people it can be very tricky especially people who've only really photographed static objects you know that you're still alive and landscapes to a degree is to understand and work on the sense of timing and you can do this by watching people. Even if you don't photograph people I would like you to watch people because we understand people, we understand how people move and behave and if you sit somewhere have a coffee go to a cafe you know just do a bit of people watching and try and think about when they're going to step, when they're going to walk, are they going to you know put their hand through their hair something like that. All of these are little ways of polishing your sense of anticipation then you can maybe one day go up with a camera, be unobtrusive you don't want to be in people's faces because this is another thing with the decisive moment it is not about forcing a moment it's not that at all you don't want to be like that guy in London years ago who was walking down the street towards me sticking his camera in everybody's faces looking for reaction shots you know you know sort of thing right you don't want to be that guy he was doing something else entirely he was provoking reactions you want to be the stealthy person watching for the thing that everybody else misses but you are capable of seeing and that's when you start creating those photographs that when everybody else looks and you go I was there how did you see this is this is the magic you can see the magic at work you know photos now so practice this this idea of timing you know photograph people try and get them when they're just stepping onto the thing you know Edward my bridge Maybridge I thought I would never pronounce his name properly you know him with the horses that you know think about that right so there's some images in those frames and all the the images that he did subsequently people walking stuff that don't really have much about them but there's one or two where everything just comes right like with the horses you know because it was a bet about whether or not all four hooves were off the ground at the same time it's the image of the horse in full flight that is the one that most people are gravitated towards because that's the decisive moment for that one so you can see that this is not just restricted to landscape photography it can be sorry not let's go to the street photography because silly of me right it is not restricted to the street photography it is you can employ these techniques in any photographic genre that really you can think of with one exception that exception is still alive where nothing really is moving because the decisive moment is all about a little bit of motion static objects don't move rather obviously you know but people do move trees move clouds move wildlife move flowers and insects they move right those are the things that change the photograph those are the random elements if you want to call them that that make your photographs something special that really brings it up so that's kind of really you know if you want to try and employ these things you need to think about places where things can have a bit of fluidity there's no point in standing looking at you know a building for example inside on a completely clear and you know overcast there where nothing is happening it is extremely unlikely that there's going to be a decisive moment play out unless there are other things at play within the scene to give you more chance of getting motion into your images create compositions that lend themselves to these kind of things that there are elements you know look look at the the very famous uh you know the man leaping over the water at the back of the station by Henry Cartier-Bressard and I'm not going to try and pronounce because my French is awful but there's motion in this there's lots of elements that make it visually exciting can you see how you know all the things we've talked about so far are starting to come into play with these photographs and and there are many photographers throughout you know history who have employed these techniques in in various different ways and that's of course the beauty of it once you understand how you can start you know laying the foundation for these images to take place then you don't have to restrict yourself to just what you know Cartier-Bressard was doing you can take these these concepts and run with them in your own direction and I would employ you to do that once you feel like you've got an idea about going with these things and once you feel like you're getting a hand with it use it in your own unique way because this is what photography is all about the techniques are just a basis for you to go and explore in your own way and that's what I really want you to do this is this is why this channel is here it is because I want you guys to express yourselves in your own unique ways to not be like everybody else go and see the world as only you can see it in the modern age of digital why have you it's it's tempting to think that if you photograph a lot like you spray and pray do a bit of machine gunning right that that will improve your chances and and I would caution you against doing this unless you are like a wildlife photographer something with an extremely fast moving subject because you are using it as a crutch you are going to think it's okay just to photograph you know a hundred frames a second or some insane amount on the off chance that one of them will be okay I talked earlier about patience have the patience by all means if some if a scene is playing a photograph a number of shots right don't think that you are limited to just one frame of a certain scene you know photograph a couple of frames if you want to you know let the story play out if something different happens if something you know subsequent changes the whole scene then boomies take more photographs because you are going to build up this anticipation you're going to understand how a scene is going to play out much like Henry Cartier-Bresson he understood these things because the more that you do them the more that you practice this in any genre of photography then you are going to become more proficient at it see it doesn't have to be difficult the next time you're out and about photographing something I would like you to think back to this lesson to think back to this talk that we've had about how you can improve the chances of a decisive moment taking place doesn't matter what you're photographing think within that scene so is there a scene here on what something can play itself out is there a random element that is going to improve the scene does the composition of the image lend itself to to motion to movement to giving a focal point to that thing that is going to elevate the photograph and are you aware are you keenly involved in that image so that you know the moment when all the stars are going to align Alex Webb is a great exponent of these decisive moments we're having I've linked to his video here over here right because I think he will really enjoy looking at his images thank you ever so much for watching and I'll see you again soon