How Photography’s ‘Decisive Moment’ Often Depicts an Incomplete View of Reality | January 2015 | Hillman Photography Initiative

How Photography’s ‘Decisive Moment’ Often Depicts an Incomplete View of Reality

Photojournalism can be like “trying to play Rachmaninoff while wearing boxing gloves,” as former photojournalist Simon Norfolk put it. One looks for the dramatic, the iconic, the universal, and in doing so the photographer then often simplifies the situation, removing it from a specific context that may help explain what the viewer will be seeing.