Image of the Week #8, September 12, 2011:

From: Thrifty Thursday: lighting is more important than camera by Alex Wild at Compound Eye.

Source of the original: Crystal Ernst

“Photography is not like painting. There is a creative fraction of a second when you
are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself
offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the
moment the photographer is creative,” he said. “Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever.”

- famed photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, from The Acknowledged Master of the Moment, Washington Post, August 5, 2004.

Henri Cartier-Bresson was recognized for his mastery of “The Decisive Moment” in photography, the singular slice of time when tripping the camera shutter most captures the essence of a story.

In this photograph of an Acorn Weevil (Curculio sp.) launching herself into the air, biologist Crystal Ernst of McGill University catches a decisive entomological moment.

The timing of the shot is impeccable, and the aspect reveals key features of the beetle’s flight morphology. The image encapsulates what science photography should be: both breathtaking and illustrative.