Waiting for Chance – An Interaction Between the Photographer, the Camera, and the Decisive Moment

Avenue Kléber, Paris 2024. Oscar Eklund

I’m standing on a street in Paris. I don’t know the name of the street, but here I am—waiting. I’ve been standing here for a while, maybe half an hour, without anything remarkable being caught on camera. I’m waiting for something—something that stands out, that catches my attention. But nothing is in sight. I’m about to give up and move on when I notice two well-dressed men stepping out onto the street for a smoke. I recognize them from the slightly fancier, more expensive restaurant next to the one where I just had lunch. One leans casually against a poster board, the other against the concrete base of a lamppost. There’s something between them—a vibe, a tone they can’t have inside the restaurant, shoulders relaxed.

I find them to be an intriguing “pair,” something my photographic eye has increasingly gravitated toward lately for reasons I don’t yet fully understand. Perhaps it’s the thrill of discovering something repetitive in an otherwise completely unpredictable world? Maybe it’s even the same pulse-raising feeling I get when I roll two sixes in a row during the Christmas gift game, or when I make a lucky match in Memory? I don’t know. In any case, my gaze is determined to register these irregular regularities whenever they appear.

I decide to take a picture. As I raise the camera to my left eye, two other men—dressed in loud yet harmonizing uniforms—walk into my composition. I press the shutter! Overjoyed by the realization that I’ve captured two “pairs” in the same frame.

Time passes, and I’ve since left Paris. Back home in Gothenburg, I transfer the photo’s RAW file to my external hard drive, where it sits for a few weeks before I decide to make a test print of the photograph—the one with the two pairs whose paths crossed in Paris. Eventually, I’m standing in the digital print studio at HDK-Valand, holding the A3-sized print in my hands. I take a closer look at the woman in the middle of the image—the one I originally thought was just in the way during the photo’s creation. That’s when I see it. Only now, with the photograph enlarged and held in my hands, do I notice what was actually happening on the woman’s phone screen: a live video call with another person who, incredibly, looks very much like her. I realize then that I didn’t document just two pairs, but three.

What fascinates me most about this image is that I discovered all three pairs at different stages of the photograph’s creation—before, during, and after the moment of exposure.

And why am I telling this story? Because it captures exactly what fascinates me most about photography today—its ability to seize fleeting moments. That there can be multiple layers and interactions within a photograph that somehow speak to each other. But above all, how chance—and the act of waiting for chance—can create something deeply interesting.

Oxford Street, London 2025. Oscar Eklund

In his book How I Make Photographs (2020), Joel Meyerowitz argues for embracing the everyday and the ordinary. He speaks about the importance of simply standing in one place. It might be a square, a café, or a street corner—somewhere where the place itself isn’t the obvious subject, where you just exist without doing anything, where you take on a passive role. Eventually, he claims, a new way of seeing emerges—one that reveals things we would otherwise never have noticed.

“Gradually, the boredom or the blankness you might be feeling goes away, because you’re watching ordinary things unfolding their possibilities right in front of you. Then, because you’re there, something out of the ordinary will come along and suddenly you’ll see how interesting it is.”

I’m drawn to the idea that waiting can create a way of seeing subjects and events that we might otherwise pass by. There’s something beautiful in that approach. I feel that in today’s hyperconnected world, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to maintain attention—and that the very concept of “boredom” is slowly disappearing. We live amid constant dopamine hits and endless stimulation, where our attention has drifted away from reality and into the screen.

That’s why there’s real value in seeing—by slowing down. I believe this is something worth contemplating, whether you’re a photographer or not. For me, this kind of practice is my version of mindfulness. It’s only when I pause and truly look at the world around me that I realize how rich in impressions it actually is. My euphoric discovery of the three “pairs” in Paris was, in retrospect, my way of finding “dopamine kicks” in the physical world.

Seeing moments is one thing, but capturing them is another. The godfather of street photography, Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004), and his groundbreaking book The Decisive Moment (1952) have deeply influenced not only the way I photograph, but also the way I look at photographs. Consciously or not, I believe every street photographer is, in one way or another, searching for chance—and for the instinctive ability to seize it when it decides to reveal itself. It’s precisely that ability that I strive toward, day by day.

Place Renée Vivien, Paris 2024. Oscar Eklund

In his 1983 book The Reflective Practitioner, Donald Schön (1930–1997) introduced a theoretical model of professional learning that highlights the central role of reflection in developing expertise. At the core of Schön’s theory are two fundamental forms of reflection. The first, which he calls “reflection in action,” refers to the reflective process that occurs while an action is taking place. The practitioner thinks critically and adapts in real time based on what’s happening in the moment.

“Through reflection, he can surface and criticize the tacit understandings that have grown up around the repetitive experiences of a specialized practice, and can make new sense of the situations of uncertainty or uniqueness which he may allow himself to experience.”

The second form, “reflection on action,” is about reflecting afterward—evaluating an experience to draw insights and learn from it as a whole. In other words, the practitioner, through accumulated lessons from past experiences, develops an ability to navigate uncertainty in real time.

At its core, I feel that this is what street photography is largely about: continuously placing yourself in unpredictable (and sometimes uncomfortable) situations in order to, over time, develop an instinctive sense of how to move through an unpredictable landscape. It’s about understanding whether people notice you as a photographer, whether you take them out of the moment, or keep it intact. It’s about reading body language and predicting what someone might do next. It’s about being ready—when the expected or the unexpected happens. To see opportunities before they appear—where patient waiting is of utmost importance, both photographically and personally.

Bibliography

Cartier-Bresson, H. The Decisive Moment. Simon and Schuster, 1952.
Coleman, A.D. “Private Lives, Public Places: Street Photography Ethics.” Journal of Mass Media Ethics 2 (1987).
Hadley, J. “Street Photography Ethics.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 25 (2022): 529–540.
Martin Parr Foundation. How Does Bruce Gilden Photograph People Close-Up? YouTube, April 25, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pnVLkTohlo (accessed March 21, 2025).
McClintock, A. “Street photography might seem a weird hobby – but it’s taught me patience and persistence.” The Guardian, February 28, 2024.
Meyerowitz, J. How I Make Photographs. Laurence King, 2020.
Schön, D. The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. Basic Books, 1983.