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The Defining Moment

19th March 2009 by Helena 2 Comments  

There is an exhibition of photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson at the Emirates Palace Hotel. We went along, partly because he was brilliant, but also because we are ever-so-tenuously related. He was my uncle Bertrand’s uncle. I met him a couple of times in Rome when I was a teenager. I wish now I had been more aware of the man and his Leica.

I love the idea of the defining moment – the concept he described as the time when you take a great photograph, capturing the essence of something. Since we saw the exhibition I have been on the look-out for defining moments of my own.

I saw one yesterday. I was at a traffic light, a worker was crossing the road in the midday heat wearing a selection of rags on his head to keep the sun off and dirty clothes. His eyes, as they looked towards me in my air-conditioned car, seemed almost lifeless. There was no hope in them, no interest, I don’t think he even cared if he got run over. Behind him four lanes of expensive air-conditioned cars whizzed by.

In a photograph he would have been static in front of all these moving monuments to riches he will never have. I didn’t take the picture, I didn’t even have a camera with me, but the image has stayed in my mind, just like so many of the Cartier-Bresson photographs we saw have.

henri-cartier-bresson13.jpg

Life here is always interesting. Today I am going to interview the opera diva Angela Gheorghiu. I am half-scared that she will throw a shoe at me for asking the wrong question (another defining moment) and half excited. Last night I interviewed Dannii Minogue. It was my first interview with a pop star. She was sweet, with vast fake eyelashes and pink satin dress, but it was a little like talking to someone’s teenage au-pair. In fact I found it quite hard to think of what to ask her, especially as I had been told to stay off certain subjects, like Kylie’s breast cancer. But if there was a defining moment in the interview, that was it. She mentioned the cancer, and tears welled up in her eyes.

I had a verbally defining moment from Leo yesterday on the way back from football.

“Mummy, when I grow up I am going to be boss,” he said, and then he paused. “But if you’re a boss, you can’t really go to the beach.”

That boy has his priorities well sorted out. Let me know if you come across any defining moments.
Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009


Filed Under: Abu Dhabi, Work, blog --> Tagged With: defining, moment

2 thoughts on The Defining Moment

  • Arthur says:
    19th March 2009 at 9:48 am

    Dear Helena,
    I must confess to some defining moments just listening to the voice of Angela Gheorghiu, although I have heard that she can be difficult. I think she has stayed married to her favourite tenor. Georgeous to look at, sublime of voice. Would you ask her to say how she feels singing belle canto, Bellini, as opposed to singing Puccini, which I have heard her say that she finds very emotional, and thus difficult? I would love to hear her comments.

    Glad to hear your children in good form, AB.

  • helena says:
    19th March 2009 at 11:45 am

    Hello BA
    I certainly will if I have time, I am waiting to see her now, they tell me I have 5 minutes…..I saw her at the press conference and thought she was totally and utterly marvellous, just how I imagined a diva would be, dramatic, gorgeous, flamboyant and fussing with her hair.
    Hx

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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