‘The decisive moment’ is a phrase most often associated with photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. The photographer’s job is to be always read for the lightning strike, the perfect subject and composition that flashes across the viewfinder. Preparedness and sensitivity are prerequisites, instinctive reaction without hesitation is key. A grand philosophy from an earlier era, when photography was ascendant, before the ubiquity of cameras, before digitalization and Photoshop.
I hadn’t given it much thought for a while, and then I ran across this statement in an old review of Matt Connors, work by Joe Fyfe:
"Contemporary painting has been under pressure since the advent of digital imaging, which has moved into the visual province that formerly belonged to photography. Roles have been reversed. You could once work a long time on revising a painting; now you can spend just as much time with a photograph, while painting has become the territory of the decisive moment."