I think that you need focus to be able to produce some decent work. Even if I run into some interesting scenery, if I’m not focused enough, I won’t be able to get anything good. But that never happened ! When I spot something interesting it’s like the spiderman red alert.
I don’t think that I ever made a good shot by mistake or chance. By chance I mean coming back home without being aware that this interesting shot was on the sd card. As I said, I don’t see everything in the frame but I sense things. I know that when I released the shutter, things were happening in the frame and might be interesting. The final result just appears at the post processing

Une bien belle citation Gérard et j’abonde Brassaï.

Not at all John… I really enjoyed the way you are so transparent in sharing your thought process as you unravel the issue. Thinking aloud, as it were. Also, great work to illustrate your ideas … and thanks for pointing us in the direction of Sam Abell … Wow! What a shot!

“Chance is always there. We all use it. The difference is a poor photographer meets chance one out of a hundred times and a good photographer meets chance all the time.” Brassaï.

I’m glad you understand what I was saying. I don’t know how people see everything in a frame. As you said, I sense things. But I’m not able to focus on everything in the composition. I have a rough idea of what is going on. What I want to say also is that I’ m not making those Photos by chance but as I said, the magic happens at the post processing. I know that it’s not the current trend. People like to say that they have seen the small details of their Photos when they released the shutter. Might be true or just a posture to say that everything was in control. There’s a lot of randomness in my pictures. Sometimes it’s controlled and sometimes not…

You’re right about HCB, it’s more or less the translation. “A la sauvette” also means to act quickly to avoid beeing noticed. That’s what I always try to do. To act pretty fast. I love it because you can feel in the photos the energy coming from it.
About the shapes, I think that unconsciously I act like a painter. You know it’s like trying to guess if a photo is any good or not. It doesn’t work with all the photos. But for some of them, I just close slightly my eyes to outfocus the picture and if the shapes are striking, it means to me that this pic might be a good one. The fact is by acting like that I can guess which photo has a strong composition.
They’re is a lot to say about what makes a good Photograph. We for sure forgot some stuff. But you did a great job. I like the fact that you emphasised on what HCB said. The alignment of the eye, the mind and the heart. A photo is not only technique. layers, light… It has to be meaningful. Otherwise it’s soulless one…
Let’s hope that we won’t wait another 7 years to write again on a same topic! 😁

Thank you for those extremely kind words. You made a much better blogpost than I did.

To begin with I needed to mention as you did Winogrand, Parr, Webb, Depardon, Meyerowitz, Klein, Moriyama. I have them all and the best guides towards inspiration anyone could ask for. You make a salient point about composition, it can become overloaded and over complicated. I had it in my mind, but missed it. Very important because sometimes photographs become almost unreadable. I started writing a blog on that a few months ago. Gave up because it got too complicated!

A question for you: “images à la sauvette”. Translation might be “photos on the run”? I’m unsure, but that would be more accurate. I don’t think I’ve ever quite understood that decisive moment stuff. Apart from anything else surely every second is decisive. Each one is conclusive and critical whether we’re recording it or not.

Artists often talk about “shapes”. The shape comes first when painting, then the detail is filled in to create the recognisable image. All becomes clear in the final image. You might have been thinking of something else, but nevertheless your prose is evocative.

I sincerely believe a huge amount of the process making a good photograph is emotion, a feeling, almost subconsciously made.

Thanks for the opportunity Jeff to collaborate, it’s a privilege.

It’s a bit disjointed Deborah, apologies. There’s so much to say and I couldn’t manage to put it all together. Essentially I was trying to express that it’s all about seeing and feeling in the end, the camera is irrelevant. Then of course, and I’ve looked through your work, you’ll already know this.