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Apogee Photo Magazine

Decisive Moments in Photography

by Bill Miller 

The term “Decisive Moment” has been a term used by photographers to describe the moment in which all the elements of a photograph come together at one time to make the photograph unique and special.  It can be the peak action of a sports photograph.  It can be the moment of a child’s delight, or a moment of introspection when your child’s eyes do that “thing” you love.  A tilt of the head, a certain smile, how the light from a window paints a  face, a hand that brushes hair back away from the eyes can be the ingredients that make a photograph special and define a moment more than at any other time. 

These are the photographs you have seen that pull at your heart, or make you pause to look at it a little longer than you first intended.  It is the personal drama of a photograph that separates it from all others. It grabs your eye and keeps it.  The image stands on its own and needs no explanation.  It is a singular image. 

I have photographed three of my children’s births, and each has provided that moment for me.  My instincts as a photographer were in play.  I jockeyed for position, composed my shots, checked exposure and began to shoot as I saw the “moment” coming. 

The first was my son Billy as he lay on his back taking his first breaths and crying as he grasped his uncut umbilical cord in his right hand, refusing to let it go.  He was still a part of his mother. 

The moment Justin’s umbilical cord was being cut.  The scissors, half way through the cord, were in  less than a moment going to make him a singular human being, no longer physically a part of his mother.  

Veronica as she was being handed to her mother for the first time.  They were introduced as two people that had never been strangers. 

Those were three of my four most singular, decisive and significant images. 

The last photograph was of four women and far less personal.  I was covering the Rajneeshees for the Associated Press and Time Magazine during the early days of Rajneeshpuram.  About 6,000 followers and I were waiting for their leader to drive by in a Rolls Royce.  People were singing and swaying together as music came from everywhere.  As I worked the crowd for pictures I noticed four women clustered together in a state of ecstatic fervor.  One was in tears, one was almost holy as she comforted another that was near collapse.  The last was in deeply intense prayer.  These four out-of-place Madonnas became an image that defined the concept of what being a Rajneeshee was about.  

I have captured many other moments that were equal in many ways, but none that defined the “moment” as fully and completely.  Maybe they were my best.  Maybe just the ones I liked the best.  But, they were all decisive moments and singular images. 

Maybe, those images defined my life.

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Bill Miller is a photographer, teacher and writer. He is the founder of PhotoTreks and conducts workshops in the Oregon area. You can learn more about Bill and his workshops by going to www.empnet.com/imageworks/PTREKS/index.html.