Figure 1 – A decisive moment on the beach in La Paloma, Rocha, Uruguary. (c) L Algorta 2014 and used with permission.

As I have mentioned a few times, it has been mighty cold here in the Northeast.  There are many ways to deal with this.  You can be like Mr. Zakowski of yesterday’s post and go out and deal with it, taking beautiful photographs.  You can be like me and stay indoors as much as possible.  Bring on the macrophotography!  My friend and Hati and Skoll reader, Lucia, has been even more creative.  She went to visit family in Uruguay, which is to say that she chose summer over winter.  Smart girl!

About a week ago Lucia sent me the wonderful picture of Figure 1.  It was taken with her cell phone on the beach at La Paloma, Rocha, Uruguary just as a storm broke and then sun came out. Amazing!   It is the light of what Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) called a perfect “decisive moment.”  It doesn’t last.  You just have to take the picture.

In had that experience once on a bridge in Amsterdam, NL.  It is also, of course, the experience of Ansel Adams when he took “Moonrise, Hernandez, NM, 1941.”The result of my decisive Amsterdam moment is this image.  What I learned from that experience was that the process needs to be three-fold.  First have your camera ready and preset for the light.  That’s gotten a lot easier with all the auto features on modern cameras. But I still do it, because the light defines whether a picture is going to be possible. Second take the picture, just take it! Third, you can start to fuss with the compensation and exposure if the light remains long enough.

Back to Lucia’s picture.  There I was shivering at my desk on a rather gloomy and chilly morning.  What a treat to know that somewhere it was summer!