Before I teach the concept, let me start with an apology.
So today is day 24 and I failed to record yesterday. So yeah, definitely gonna have to cough that money. Not yet, but we’ll cough it when it arrives.
But anyway, before I go ahead to teach the concept, let me start with a simple thought.
Photography is often described as capturing a moment. But the truth is a little stranger than that.
You are not capturing time. You are choosing which moment of time deserves to actually survive.
The choice, that particular choice, is the real craft.
The Decisive Moment
There’s a concept in photography called The Decisive Moment. And it was popularized by Henri Cartier Bresson. I talked about him in my previous videos.
He described photography as an instant where the visual elements of a scene and the meaning of that particular scene come together. Not before. Not after. That exact fraction of a second.
We measure shutter speeds because shutter speed is how fast it closes. And we measure them in fractions of a second.
Cartier Bresson once said, “Photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event.”
For me, that sentence hides a very powerful truth. Great photography is not about speed. It’s about awareness.
Most people think photography is pressing the shutter quickly. In reality, it’s often about waiting longer.
Waiting for someone’s guard to drop. Waiting for body language to shift. Waiting for light to move just two inches away. Or the moon to align. Or the golden hour. Or the blue hour. Or that moment before the sun sets down the horizon.
This Has Been
The philosopher Roland Barthes once wrote that every photograph carries a quiet message. And he said the message is simple. Three words: this has been.
In other words, the photograph is proof that something existed. A moment. A gesture. A rebellion. A truth.
And guess who decides what part of that truth survives? It’s the photographer.
And for me, that’s why patience matters.
When Someone Laughs, There Are Actually Three Moments
And I’ve talked a lot about laughter because it’s one of those emotions that we try to force. Laugh. And we force the laughter because we’re trying to get that ha moment.
But I tell people that even if it’s forced, there are three actual moments happening.
There is the anticipation, the moment right before the laughter happens. Then there is the explosion, which is the laughter. And then there is the exhale, the climax of the laughter.
Most people photograph the explosion. Teeth out. Chins on the sides.
But sometimes the most powerful image is actually the exhale. The moment right after that person laughing has forgotten that they are being watched.
That is where the authenticity lives.
Photography Becomes Less About Equipment and More About Attention
The camera records. But the photographer observes.
So the lesson is quite simple. Slow down.
Watch longer than you think you need to. Just because somewhere in that moment, inside the flow of the ordinary, there is always a moment where emotions or movement or meaning will align.
Tiny fraction of that time is what actually makes a photo very memorable.
And recognizing that moment, for me, is the real art of photography.
So that’s the lesson I wanted to put there before we get into tutorials and what not. Because they are everywhere. You go on YouTube and they’re teaching you the rule of thirds and they’re teaching you how to edit.
But it takes a different level of a photographer to go and dig deeper into the philosophy of photography and learn about these intricacies and read books.
Very few photographers I know in Kampala go that extra mile. And yes, it may not make my photos the most beautiful. But there is something I believe that is stored in actually knowing the history and the science behind the kind of art you’re doing.
So yeah, that’s it for Day 23. See you today on Day 24.
Now I need to shoot the other video, so I’m not even gonna change anything. Yeah, actually let me slip right into it. Day 24.
twinomugisha | 2026
