Trying to Become a Master Photographer Anonymous

Photography is like magic; they’re both about deceiving people. Since I was 14, I explored the world with my best friend, my Nikon D3400. I took thousands of photographs. Each one with less glare, less blur than the one before, but with the same magic. Behind my camera, I can capture any fleeting moment and freeze it to tell sensational stories. While I might not work with a deck of cards or silver nickels, I still mesmerize people’s imaginations like a magician’s favorite trick. My trick is the “decisive moment.”

There are a lot of astounding photographers out there, but my superhero is Henri Cartier-Bresson. He was a wizard; I wanted to be like him.

He had two rules:

1. No flash photography.

2. Capture the decisive moment – a spontaneous image that captures the essence of an event.

In other words, the only way to practice sorcery is to capture the decisive moment. The only way to capture that moment is to live decisively, drown yourself, and smell the moment. I instinctively know the correct geometry and organization of the forms by submerging myself in the present and letting go anxieties about the future. I can then create unity and balance to mess with people’s perceptions and, like a magic trick, render their imaginations...