The Decisive Moment

The photographer Cartier-Bresson coined the term “the decisive moment”, to describe how important timing is to good photography. But he was mainly talking about taking photos of people. The decisive moment for landscape photographers almost invariably has to do with the light, which is ever changing. This is especially so when dealing with storm light. When the light beams of the setting sun pass through the aperture of a narrow gap between the lowering storm clouds and the horizon, the light is filtered towards the yellow. This provides a yellow “wash” to that part of the scene that is so illuminated. In this photo, the cottonwoods across the river were illuminated in this fashion, while the cottonwood on this side of the river (the Rio Grande) was still in the shade, and thus silhouetted. This instance of storm lighting lasted only a moment. I was fortunate to have grabbed my camera and run outside just in time to catch this decisive moment.