HCB and Cropping

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

How can it be an issue, even to HCB himself, whether or not his images were cropped?

He didn't photograph to display his negatives. He was all about pictures on a page, whether in a periodical or a book. I have numerous HCB books and I could not care less whether any images in them are cropped or not.

I can appreciate an art photographer creating a limited series and hoping to have every image in the limited set as closely the same as every other one. But for anyone to otherwise care if an image is cropped or not, is folly.

My hot button may seem somewhat hypocritical but I am bothered by obvious and extensive post processing of an image whether silver gelatin or much more vociferously and recently, digital. I can live with toning, burning and dodging, etc. but I give no credibility to anyone digitally combining elements of various images, except perhaps for those practicing combining multiple exposures to create the extended tonal range images. I feel that basic darkroom manipulations are part of the truthful presentation of the image. I likewise feel that digital manipulations done to present an image that essentially didn't (or couldn't) come out of a camera are untruthful.

As W. Eugene Smith has said, "Let Truth Be the Prejudice."

I feel better now. And I've brought Gene Smith into a discussion of Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Gene Smith? Are you kidding? LOL He was notorious for combining images in the darkroom when he worked for Life magazine. He refused to allow the Time-Life Lab to make his prints and wouldn't let anyone see the negs because he added things to his photos quite often.

 

[Carlsen Highway]

Yes, the essay on Dr Schweitzer was an example.


(Peter N - you have described the myth of Van Gogh. This myth became so popular that (HCB included it seems now) you cant be a true artist unless you are poor and Suffer For Your Art) In fact, Vincent owned his own little yellow house, had enough money from rbother to live simply but comfortably supplied with paint, pipe and absinthe. The point being, that he didn't need to sell painting to eat. )


Now, regarding Mr Cartier Bresson, has anyone got any verified examples of who influenced who on his behalf as a young man in order to leapfrog him ahead of his contemporaries?

I would be very interested to hear of recorded evidence of this rather idle gossip which assumes that his "money made him into a genius", which seems to be the current thinking among many of you.

As an aside,
You think the Rangefinder forum would claim Mr Carter Bresson as one of their own, including quietly setting people striaght on smaller misunderstandings of the master, but unfortuantely nearly every thread on the man is dominated by posters who:
A : Wish to prove him a liar
B: Which to make it clear that if it wasn't for his fathers money he wouldnt be famous, (implying that he would be too busy pumping gas or selling life insurance to be a genius - like the rest of us naturally.)
C: A general reaction against what seems to felt as a kind of intellectual snobbery.
D : And there is what I call the Dances With Wolves Effect - which dictates that when you have an immensely popular item, there will be at least %5 who will claim to hate it simply to get attention by being different. I can't measure this, but I know it's there.

After coming across it on many photography forums, I am fascinated to see that nearly all of the negative stuff is almost universally from US posters. I think that is fascinating. Perhaps they react against some kind of aristocratic association with HCB.
(Now, dont get me wrong, my Father was born and raised in Oregon...)

This is why I like threads like this. Both the subject and the participants are worthy subjects for discussion.

 

[peter_n]

Peter N - you have described the myth of Van Gogh. This myth became so popular that (HCB included it seems now) you cant be a true artist unless you are poor and Suffer For Your Art) In fact, Vincent owned his own little yellow house, had enough money from rbother to live simply but comfortably supplied with paint, pipe and absinthe. The point being, that he didn't need to sell painting to eat.

Nope. Just finished reading The Letters of van Gogh edited by Mark Roskill. A primary source and not a myth. Throughout the whole of his time as a painter he was concerned about money.

I agree that it does not matter because the talent is there, but it is worth acknowledging the many potential artists who do not have the money and will not sacrifice their families in order to pursue artistic success. we will never know about them, but we can be sure they are out there.

I agree entirely, and would add that there are many who's life of expression is stunted at an early age because of the lack of funds to support it.

 

[Al Kaplan]

Carlsen, there's nothing wrong with Oregon. They grow some of the best hydroponic cannibus in the U.S.

Some of my best work was done when I had both a wife and a girlfriend. 😎

 

[Leigh Youdale]

It's probably been said somewhere above but for me the issue is the image, and if cropping the negative during printing results in an improvement in the composition then it's appropriate.
To claim that cropping is some sort of cardinal sin, tantamount to losing one's virginity, or a serious lack of professional ability is sophistry.

 

[wgerrard]

Carlsen, the internet brings out the latent anger in many people, who seem quite willing to attack anyone who is actually recognized for being good at something. It's a variation of the anti-elite theme, which sees people extolling deliberate ignorance.

It seems patently unimportant if HCB or any other photographer cropped images. In terms of field of view, cropping bears a resemblance to jumping to a lens with a narrower point of view. Are we to question the bona fides of someone who removes a 35mm lens and attaches a 50? Or uses a zoom? What about anyone who has ever cleaned up spots on a print? Or, burned and dodged their way to better image?

LIkewise, the wealth of HCB's family has importance only to the extent it allowed him to spend a great deal of time walking around taking pictures, rather than working 9 to 5. If he had been a talentless poseur, he would have produced thousands of forgettable photos. Whatever talent he possessed, he owed none of it to his family's bank accounts.

If HCB did or did not crop, why care? No one is keeping score.

 

[Al Kaplan]

Next week we can discuss whether or not W. Eugene Smith was a great photographer because he'd spend hours in the darkroom and use lots of paper working to get just one great print, and he used potassium fericyanide to selectively bleach areas of the print.

http://thepriceofsilver.blogspot.com

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Next week we can discuss whether or not W. Eugene Smith was a great photographer because he'd spend hours in the darkroom and use lots of paper working to get just one great print, and he used potassium fericyanide to selectively bleach areas of the print.

http://thepriceofsilver.blogspot.com

Knowledge is a sure sign of elitism. And not no nobody doesn't not like not that. 😎

 

[Al Kaplan]

...and the following week we can discuss the best ways to sandpaper the front elements of your expensive leses so you can get those lovely dreamy images that David Hamilton likes to achieve in his photographs.

Raid can experiment with different grits of sandpaper and tell us whether he prefers the look of VC lenses over Leica or Zeiss, or perhaps classic Nikkor and Canon lenses from the sixties.

I don't think Gene cared all that much beyond being careful not to mix the ferracyanide crystals in the Scotch glass instead of the beaker of water.

 

[Bob Michaels]

This thread has "jumped the shark"

Sad to see it go but it lasted longer than most.

 

[Carlsen Highway]

Mr Kaplan, your a hard shot.🙂

NikonWebmaster - I remember listening to Mr Cartier Bresson describe when he sold his first picture (Vu magazine I think?). He didn't sound like a rich kid to me. He sounded very much like me when I sold my first one, wished I could frame the cheque.

 

[Carlsen Highway]

It is indeed.

 

[Turtle]

All those who think this thread has been commandeered by those bashing HC-B, try reading the thread from the start. I just have (again) and this thread is most definitely NOT about bashing HC-B for being rich, cropping, or anything else. Reading it through makes that plain.

Sure, some have said his wealth gave helped allow his talent to take root, by removing financial concerns. Some have even said that there is evidence he did crop, certainly a little, maybe some more. Some have offered the opinion (to which they are entitled) that he perhaps over-intellectualised his position, but so what? Lets not go down the road of suggesting that this is another HCB bashing thread with him being portrayed by inadequate RFF members as a spoilt liar who deliberately created a misleading mystique!

I think the debate about cropping, or not, is quite interesting, as is its context within what HCB did and how it influences people now.

 

[Roger Hicks]

All those who think this thread has been commandeered by those bashing HC-B, try reading the thread from the start. I just have (again) and this thread is most definitely NOT about bashing HC-B for being rich, cropping, or anything else. Reading it through makes that plain.

Sure, some have said his wealth gave helped allow his talent to take root, by removing financial concerns. Some have even said that there is evidence he did crop, certainly a little, maybe some more. Some have offered the opinion (to which they are entitled) that he perhaps over-intellectualised his position, but so what? Lets not go down the road of suggesting that this is another HCB bashing thread with him being portrayed by inadequate RFF members as a spoilt liar who deliberately created a misleading mystique!

I think the debate about cropping, or not, is quite interesting, as is its context within what HCB did and how it influences people now.

Seconded. My only point in mentioning his background was that as a well-to-do French kid of the era, intellectualization would have come naturally to him.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Sparrow]

So where does the truth fit into all this? with regard to the original question that is.

 

[Carlsen Highway]

The truth? I will take Henri Cartier Bresson's word for it. We are both, after all, gentlemen.

 

[leicashot]

Crop or no crop, who really cares? We all would like to be able to get a picture the way we want at the time of expsoure, but it's not always possible, and sometimes we see it differently in the processing stage.

I wouldn't think for a second that the best photographers don't crop. The best photographer's are the ones that get it 'mostly' right out of the camera, and crop occasionally, saving on workflow.

 

[Przemek]

To anwser the question:

one (two?) picture is worth a million words

🙄

 

[summaron]

For me each lens length has its own "tone of voice" and when you crop you tend to defeat the natural qualities of the focal length and leave a somewhat artificial look.

The endlessly interesting HC-B Scrapbook published by T&H in 2007 seems to indicate that Cartier-Bresson cropped very little -- and you can see the before and after versions of the puddle jumper there, and also variants of very familiar photos, such as the children playing in the ruins in Spain.

Cartier-Bresson did allow Alexei Brodovitch, his and Avedon and Kertesz and Louise Dahl-Wolf's editor, to crop his photos per Charles Reynolds (Phaidon 2002):

Brodovitch tried always to confer with each person about the cropping of his pictures ... Henri Cartier-Bresson who usually does not allow his pictures to be cropped in any way, allowed Brodovitch to alter his photographs for a particular layout when he was shown it in comparison to another one in which the pictures were uncropped.

I agree with the comment above about Cartier-Bresson's most adventurous and passionate work being those photographs he took in Spain and Mexico before 1935. Peter Galassi's book on the early work makes this point persuasively, and perhaps this upcoming show in April 2010 will help reframe our ideas of HC-B. From the MOMA website:

MoMA’s retrospective, the first in the United States in three decades, surveys Cartier-Bresson’s entire career, with a presentation of about 300 photographs, mostly arranged thematically and supplemented with periodicals and books. The exhibition is organized by Peter Galassi, Chief Curator of The Department of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art, and is accompanied by a major publication. The exhibition travels to the Art Institute of Chicago and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.