I was just catching up on my viewing with the “B” disc of the Criterion DVD release of Jean Vigo’s visionary film L’Atalante when I came across this stellar quote from its cinematographer, Boris Kaufman:

“…everything was used: sun, fog, snow, night.  Instead of fighting unfavorable conditions, we incorporated them.  If there was fog, we added smoke to make it denser.  If it rained, we added lighting to accentuate it.”

He’s talking about the improvisatory nature of the film here but I started to think of it in terms of landscape photography.  A lot of shooting landscapes is waiting for the right moment when “conditions are right.”  Why not choose the moment for its technical difficulty and amp it up?  The thought of them trying to shoot through fog and then just saying, no, let’s use a smoke machine to create an even thicker cloud is a total lightbulb.

The obstacle becomes transformed from hindrance to a stepping stone that leads towards a work that would otherwise not be possible.  Cartier-Bresson’s “decisive moment” can then become proactive not reactive.  Not waiting for right conditions but choosing present conditions as right, one is freed from the waiting and just starts doing.