09.09. | The Master of the Decisive Moment and the Cascading Hair in the Metro Underpass

Forget technique. Forget the rules. It's time to discover the artist inside you.

Have you ever wondered how Henri Cartier-Bresson, master of the decisive moment, saw the world? Or how Brassaï felt the pulse of Paris at night? What if, for one month, you could look at the world through their eyes?

This is not an ordinary photography course. It is a ten-month adventure, a journey back to photography's golden age. From September to June, every month we step into the world of a legendary photographer with the help of art historian and museologist Dávid Balogh. We don't simply analyse their pictures: we experience their era, adopt their way of seeing, and create work in their style. Details about the adult education programme are available here.

So let's begin.

Hello, photography lovers and moment hunters! Have you ever thought that photography isn't merely clicking a shutter, but a kind of cry—a way of being alive? I hadn't framed it quite that way either until I immersed myself in the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, the “master of the decisive moment”.

Prepare yourselves, because this man became such a legend that during the Second World War some believed he was dead—only for him to survive and live almost an entire century.

The Man Who Nearly Lived to One Hundred—and the Hungarian Connection

Cartier-Bresson, a Frenchman who spent some time in New York but regarded Paris as his real home, has often been called the Picasso of photography. He didn't name many photographers as major inspirations. But two Hungarians mattered: Martin Munkácsi and André Kertész.

Munkácsi's famous Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika, showing boys running into the surf, struck Cartier-Bresson deeply. He later described it as a revelation: the silhouettes, movement and play of light and shadow showed him that photography could seize a fleeting instant and give it permanence.

The Leica, Black Tape and the Eternal 50 mm Lens

Bresson—the form-obsessed aesthete, which from now on sounds like a perfectly usable dating-app bio—loved his Leica. He reportedly covered its shiny metal parts with black tape so they would attract less attention and distract him less while working. During the war he even hid his camera to keep it from being confiscated. That's commitment.

He was closely associated with the 50 mm lens because its angle of view suited the way he wanted to organise the world. Why carry a cupboard full of lenses if one perspective lets you work instinctively?

The Decisive Moment: Hunting Fragile Reality

So what is the decisive moment?

Think of a hunter waiting patiently—not for an animal, but for a convergence of gesture, geometry and meaning. Cartier-Bresson wanted the instant in which a scene seemed to contain what had just happened, what was happening now and what might happen next.

Take the famous photograph of the man leaping over a puddle behind the Gare Saint-Lazare. His heel has not yet touched the water, but we already anticipate the splash and feel the momentum. A whole tiny film unfolds inside a still image.

Magnum and the Chroniclers of the World

After the war—once it became clear that he was very much alive—Cartier-Bresson helped found Magnum Photos with fellow photographers. The cooperative's photographers travelled widely with portable cameras, working quickly and discreetly while documenting major events and everyday life.

And why am I telling you all this?

Following the advice of Dávid Balogh, the art historian and museologist leading the session, we photographed with our phones, in black and white, and deliberately stepped outside our comfort zones.

The task: one press of the shutter, one strong image. No post-production, no retouching. Build the frame with light, shadow, geometry and a dynamic instant before you take the picture.

Instead of sitting comfortably analysing photographs during our last class, we descended into the depths of a metro underpass. Because where better to hunt passing, spontaneous, everyday moments than in the noisy, pulsing “stomach” of the city?

And the assignments?

The participants could tell you stories.

Working in pairs, they had to translate prompts such as “teardrop”, “splashing”, “braking”, “balloon” and “cascade of hair” into decisive moments. Not literal illustrations—the idea was to find the emotional or kinetic essence behind the word.

I saw the shock on a few faces. That was part of the exercise.

So if you feel like hunting decisive moments with your phone in black and white—black tape optional—go for it. Who knows, perhaps you'll become the next master of the decisive moment.

Cartier-Bresson's philosophy was that photography requires total concentration: head, eye and heart aligning for a fraction of a second as fleeting reality falls into place.

Or, as we'd put it in the metro underpass: switch to black and white and catch that cascading hair before it's gone.

Now let's see how our students brought out their inner Bresson.

Part of the BANHALMI ecosystem

For the professional context and practical side of portrait photography, visit the BANHALMI professional website. Related art series, books and exhibitions are preserved in the BANHALMI ART archive.