God's Messengerby
pawdrixComment: I̢۪m surprised that nobody has remarked on the connection between this photograph and Henri Cartier-Bresson̢۪s celebrated image,
Place de l'Europe, Gare Saint Lazare. The mid-air disposition of the hurrying figure so closely matches HCB̢۪s puddle-jumper that the comparison should surely be irresistible.
Cartier-Bresson’s 1932 photograph is often used in illustration of his concept of the ‘decisive moment’, although in my view nearly always for the wrong reasons. The fact that the camera catches his little man at the instant before he reconnects with the earth is ‘decisive’ only in the most superficial sense. In truth it’s no more than a happy accident, and no more worthy of acclaim than a stop-motion image of a hummingbird or a ludicrously hyperbolic macro of an insect’s eye.
Most analysts manage to see a little deeper into HCB’s image than that however, and note the way in which his leaping figure echoes the silhouette of the ballet dancer on the poster behind him, arguing that that happy coincidence is what makes the moment depicted so ‘decisive’. The coincidence of an unwitting visual parody has certainly been a ‘go-to’ device for street photographers ever since.
But lying beneath all that there̢۪s the vastly more interesting question of the figurative significance of Cartier-Bresson̢۪s photograph, and it̢۪s at that level that I think it does depict a
genuinely decisive moment; a moment worth reflecting upon. 1932 and thereabouts was a particularly decisive moment for Europe as it groped for a new identity and for a new social fabric following the hecatomb of the Great War and the repudiation of the old system of privilege that helped cause it. Cartier-Bresson̢۪s little man, stepping boldly into the uncertainty of the puddle, is a wonderful metaphor for the Europe of that precise moment. The past, represented by the broken wheel shapes in the water and by the tiny patch of firm ground anchoring the ladder, lies behind him. Ahead is the unknown. HCB even depicts him almost at the forward edge of the frame, so that we see no more of what lies ahead than does the little European man. It̢۪s a sublime decisive moment.
It̢۪s also one that could never have occurred to Cartier-Bresson at the time. Nor would he have spotted that witty resonance between the leaper and the ballet dancer until later. And nor of course did he intentionally and with aforethought capture that magic instant of levitation, when the man is just barely disconnected from the earth̢۪s surface.
And nor did you (I̢۪ll bet you thought I̢۪d never find my way back to
your photograph!)
But your photograph is just as absorbing as Cartier-Bresson’s, and on just as many levels. For the amusement of the easily distracted, there is the very same levitation trick: your guy is frozen in air (just like a hummingbird). There’s also a witty visual joke (just like the ballet dancer) in that your guy is seen running past the most proverbial place of refuge because he has no choice â€Â¦ it’s entirely barred to his entry: the stairs are barred; the doors are barred; all the windows are barred; even the miserable little garden is barred to exclude him. And finally, at a more fanciful level, there is the decisive moment in metaphor. The hooded, anonymous, dark, modern individual hurries forward, alone and vaguely desperate, while the tired old pillars of society are quite indifferent to him and his fate, and for his part he doesn’t even notice that they are there.
One more similarity between you and Henri Cartier-Bresson â€Â¦ you didn’t plan all this stuff any more than he did, but you were both there, both captured the moment, and both knew then and especially later that there was something of moment about the moment.
It̢۪s very good to see your work again, Steve. I must deplore the absence of an apostrophe in the title, but nevertheless I declare your photograph a favourite and award you my inaugural Order of the Thumb:
(edit to add Thumb thumb)Message edited by author 2008-12-21 18:10:24. 
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