2. Perfect timing
If Henri Cartier-Bresson were to peruse this online collection of photos, would he recognize his “decisive moment”?
In 1952, in his work Images à la sauvette, Cartier-Bresson mentions in the preface what he calls the “decisive moment.” It would become a key concept in the field of documentary photography. One of his most famous images is from this collection: on the Place de l’Europe, as a man in a hurry jumps over a puddle, we see his image reflected in the water. This iconic image has since represented images taken on the spot. Decades later, photography, ubiquitous on the Internet, has digested the lessons of the great master of the medium.
The story of the phenomenon Perfectly Timed Photos starts with two friends, freshly expelled from a web company that went bankrupt. A few years later, they’re heading up more than thirty sites collecting images submitted by users, including Japan is weird, WTFACE, and Passed Out Photos.
Perfectly Times Photos receives more than 100 photos a week from users across the world. The same users can vote for the “most perfectly timed” photo. Could this picture of a finger popping a bubble be the cousin 2.0 to Harold Edgerton’s drop of milk photo from 1957? It has already been deemed the “Most perfectly timed photo ever.” Not sure Henri would appreciate that.
Pauline Auzou
Read the full text of this article on the French version of Le Journal.
