Watch video and discuss Bresson’s ideas on how compositional elements can come together in a decisive moment.

Compositional elements can come together in a decisive moment by spontaneously capturing moments in time that put forth significant meaning. The image should be able to accurately capture the event taking place through the shapes, lighting, framing, and movement. The structure of a picture is vital and many different aspects go into creating a “good” picture that clearly displays emotion and tells a story. When all of the elements within a photo come together it has the ability to tell a story. These stories can evoke certain emotions such as joy, anger, sadness, fear, surprise, etc. Bresson expresses how time plays a factor in photography as it is always moving, just like people in day to day life. For instance, in the youtube video Bresson states, “Every minute is new…Life changes every minute. The world is being created every minute and the world is falling to pieces every minute.” Essentially, there are changes always taking place and learning how to capture moments with a variety of compositional elements can be revolutionary to a photographer and his/her work. Compositional elements include (but are not limited to) texture, background, negative space, shapes, frames, patterns and depth of field.