Union Square, San Fransisco

The Decisive Moment

Shot @ ISO 1250, 1/1600sec, f/3.5

     "Photography is not like painting. There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative. Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever." - Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1957.

 H. Cartier-Bresson coined the term "The Decisive Moment." This phrase contains the quintessential difference between the masters of photography, and the mere hobbyists.

     If a sports photographer is shooting an LA Lakers basketball game, and he clicks the shutter a second or two after Kobe dunks, the photograph might as well be deleted. That is how important seizing that golden moment can be. 

   
     One way that I have been able to sharpen my skill of capturing that instantaneous moment is taking photos in the passenger seat of the car. This simple visual and mental exercise trains my mind to see a few seconds into the future, thus allowing me to imagine the image in my head before I see it on the LCD screen of my camera. More often than not, I smack on my 18mm lens, and either roll down the window, or I open the sun roof, depending on the environment. Sometimes, if the window is dirty enough, and I am trying to capture a grungy or morbidly urban image, I keep the window rolled up, to add to the grotesqueness.

Sunday Afternoon

As I was walking around the Four Seasons Hotel, I was trying to capture the essence of it, namely, its grandiosity. Although this is just about half of the hotel, I think it does justice to the tremendous hotel.

Casa Esperanza

Sometimes symmetry is unnecessary. This idea is depicted by this building. However, the architect designed this highly asymmetrical building in such a way that does not make it look sloppy. Asymmetry adds interest. An example of this statement is the human face; human faces, in fact, are slightly asymmetrical, thus making them more interesting.

Urban Overcast

Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall is truly magnificent. This creation is just one of his fingerprints that he has graced us with. The majority of photos I took of this vivacious piece of architecture were solely focused on the building itself. What I like about this particular image over all of the others I took is this one gives the viewer context of the location of this concert hall; amidst dreadfully dull buildings, this unique masterpiece graces its surroundings with an unearthly presence.