Unfinished Motion

The photograph I received as inspiration sparked a reflection on how photography has historically

grappled with the challenge of capturing movement, particularly the moving body. This led me to explore two key references: Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare (1932) and the chronophotographic motion studies of Étienne-Jules Marey.

In Bresson’s image, a poster of a dancer appears in the background – an image of motion made still – while in the foreground, a man leaps over a puddle, suspended mid-air in a spontaneous gesture. Marey’s work, by contrast, dissects motion with scientific precision, breaking the body into sequential stills. These two contrasting approaches – one poetic and accidental – the other analytical and measured – became my conceptual anchors.