Seeking Out The Decisive Moment
“I don’t think that there is really any necessarily decisive way to lock in on where you need to be or what you need to look for to capture the decisive moment. You just keep your head up, move fast, and press the shutter button a lot. Take a lot of pictures.” – Holden Mathis
Holden Mathis is a photographer with a history working in a variety of art forms, ranging from drawing to playing the drums. In this episode we discuss how he got into photography and his journey leading him there, as well as his creative approach to drawing milk cartons, painting firearms, and studying the light reflections off of big cats, amongst other things.
Holden and I have been friends for a number of years, and we ran a production company called Heatskr Digital for a number of years, so there’s no more fitting a first guest for this podcast.
You can follow Holden on Instagram @holden.mathis.
In this episode we discuss:
- The principles of camouflage and how big cats reflect light
Various artistic ventures, including drawing and playing drums, and how Holden explored different mediums in high school
- Principles of drawing, and examples of what to look for when drawing a milk carton
- Introduction and early experiences with cameras and photography
- Exploring photography during trips to the Florida Keys and capturing random subjects
- The transition to more serious photography with the acquisition of his first camera
- The concept of the decisive moment in photography and examples of photos that captured it
- Approaches to finding decisive moments at events and the importance of activity and composition
- Balancing the capture of information and composition in event coverage
