The German language has a different word here: Entscheidung. The German word Scheidung means to separate something. We also have the phrase
Scheiden tut weh
– it hurts to be separated (from someone or something). So if we say Entscheidung, it actually means something good. We end an inner separation, we bring together the things, we make ourselves or a situation whole again.
To de-cide is to end a cision (if that word would exist) – a condition that cost more energy (if we are torn apart within, that condition does cost energy) and make room to move forward. If cision last too long, it drains energy from us, takes us away from the next step, hinders us to be whole.
As photographers, we make decisions all the time. We are used to decide: we exclude, we focus, we choose the aperture, we change position.
We compose the picture by making decisions.
If the pictures do not work out, the decisions might have been wrong – but we made them, nevertheless. We learn, and in future, our decisions might be better. Photographic technique is something we have to learn to know which decisions we can make, to understand what the consequences are. But this is only to help us on the way in our capability to better express ourselves. What we want to say – that is a different story we have to de-cide.
That is, what art(iculation) is about: to de-cide what to tell, and de-cide how to tell it, and finally – tell it.
