Écluse de Bougival, France, 1956
Gelatin silver print
Printed 1980
Image size: 14 × 9 ½ in.
Framed size: 17 × 12 in.
Signed in ink on border
April 1, 2024
When Henri Cartier-Bresson’s 1952 book Images à la Sauvette (“Images on the Run”) was published in the United States, it was retitled The Decisive Moment and the name stuck, becoming a shorthand for the photographer's viewpoint and working methods. One of Cartier-Bresson’s key insights, stated in his preface for the book, is that the subject or meaning of a photograph is inseparable from its composition, and composition in photography can change in a fraction of a second.
This photograph's composition is enlivened by the way that the direction of the various gazes keeps our own eyes moving around the picture. The presumptive father in this family unit stands with his hands on his hips, and serves as our own point of visual entry, looking into the scene. From there we embark on a game of visual pinball: seeing the mother casting her eyes downward towards the elder woman, who is looking at the baby who, like the dog on the right, is in turn looking back at the father. This ricocheting sequence of gazes is interrupted by the dog on the left, who breaks the picture's fourth wall by locking eyes on Cartier-Bresson and, thus, us.
