HCB: "I don't Like Photography, I never have"

Interesting read and look at is "Tete A Tete" with portraits by HCB.

He was the first to popularize the new smaller format camera, Leica, to make photographs. B&W film was pretty much the norm back then.

Don't know if he made much money selling his photography as his father had a business that was successful. Check out here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Cartier-Bresson

He, like Annie Leibovitz of today, got noticed by the well known/well to do and photographed many of those people. Take a peek at Annie's book, "Annie Leibovitz at Work," to get an understanding of her and how her view of the world has changed over the years.

Again, she got noticed by influential people, whatever the reason(s) and could receive a tidy sum for her work. She came from a not so well to do background unlike HCB.

Currently I subscribe to Vanity Fair and I see Annie is still doing work for them. Perhaps she still needs the money as I understand she has had some financial challenges.

That's life, isn't it?
 
HCB: "I don't Like Photography, I never have"
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This makes sense for me.
I think for an artist its important not to be a devotee of the genre that he does.
Devotees produces usually quotations ... not new creations.
 
Cartier-Bresson was always a painter first and foremost, that statement doesn't surprise really. Besides you don't really have to like something to be very (exceedingly) good at it
 
redisburning said:
the state recognizes them as teachers or doctors.

in the vast majority of places, you have to have a certification to be a teacher. to be a doctor you have to go through med school and a residency and board certification.

your analogy does not work because it is based on an incorrect assumption that being an artist is as well defined.
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The publishing department I work in employs several artists. That is their job title. They do our graphics development, book design and layout, etc. All the employees in that group have at least Bachelors or Masters degrees in Fine Art and Design.

The only ones dumber then non-artists calling themselves artists for the sake of the pretension it affords are the people who don't believe that artists—people who have been trained in art, who studied art ... people who are hired for their skills as an artist—have a right to call themselves artists.

It's almost as bad as the vast majority of camera equipment junkies who call themselves photographers. ;-)

G
 
If you pay attention, you will notice tHat there can be no OBJECTIVITY. Everything is always SUBJECTIVE, We always agree to ignore that when we call anything OBJECTIVE.
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Very sensible, when applied to any artistic endeavour and succinctly put.
 
Godfrey said:
The publishing department I work in employs several artists. That is their job title. They do our graphics development, book design and layout, etc. All the employees in that group have at least Bachelors or Masters degrees in Fine Art and Design.

The only ones dumber then non-artists calling themselves artists for the sake of the pretension it affords are the people who don't believe that artists—people who have been trained in art, who studied art ... people who are hired for their skills as an artist—have a right to call themselves artists.

It's almost as bad as the vast majority of camera equipment junkies who call themselves photographers. ;-)

G
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+1000000000
 
kbg32 said:
http://www.biography.com/people/henri-cartier-bresson-9240139?page=1

"But Africa did fuel another interest in him: photography. He experimented with a simple Brownie he'd received as a gift, taking pictures of the new world around him. For Cartier-Bresson there were direct parallels between his old passion and his new one.

"I adore shooting photographs," he'd later note. "It's like being a hunter. But some hunters are vegetarians—which is my relationship to photography." In short, as his frustrated editors would soon discover, Cartier-Bresson preferred taking shots rather than making prints and showing his work."
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My understanding has always been that Messr. Cartier-Bresson never truly "hated" photography; he just didn't care for darkroom work.

Based on what I have read, he much preferred being out and about, making photographs to being cooped up in the darkroom making prints.

Along those lines, he once said
Actually, I'm not all that interested in the subject of photography. Once the picture is in the box, I'm not all that interested in what happens next. Hunters, after all, aren't cooks.
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OK. Let me try to analyze this.

HCB was into painting and drawing, not into photography.
Well, was anybody else into him as artist? I don't think so.

Remember another young fella story, around same time?
He was going to be artist, because he was good at it. But back at beginning of previous century it was way to many artist to compete with.
So, one young fella ended as Fuhrer, it was wrong choice.
Another looked around and, according to HCB himself, it was only few photogs in Paris.

Because he was good as artist at every possible aspect and because of his gift to catch the moment he made it in photography.
Once he was famous he was able to paint and draw and be recognizable.
 
Remember this is the same kook who said that he never said the words ' decisive moment' but whatever, what else has he said, I wonder??
 
I suspect it is all pretty simple. He wanted to be a great painter and fell flat on his face and it pissed him off. How many people do you know who want what they cannot have? That makes him a pretty ordinary fellow who was a great photographer.
I think when mindlessly debating artist/paint dauber/photography one should remember this definition of a piece of art, "it is something that has a quality in it that rises above the ordinary." I once went to an art museum filled with Renior, Van Gogh and Rembrandt paintings and one lady had made a quilt and it was there, too.
 
Maybe, in the circles he moved in, it was important to him to be considered an artist. Photography was not embraced by the Art World as an Art until the 1960's. Even then the phrase "illegitimate child of painting" was a common pejorative used to keep photography in it's place. Like most forms of prejudice, this attitude still persists, although the words are no longer spoken in polite company.
 
DougFord said:
OK that makes sense.
Here's a recording of Jean François Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz doing an impression of HCB where, he indeed, says 'decisive moment' (2:30)
http://tedbarron.com/BWF-June-2009/23-Henri-Cartier-Bresson.mp3
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The aforementioned book by Cartier-Bresson was titled "Images a la Sauvette", nothing close to the english edition title "The decisive Moment". That title was chosen by the english publisher from a phrase by Cardinal de Retz (died in 1679, BTW) cited by HCB in his preface to the book. So, the term was not coined by HCB although he used it... as he used many other words and terms along his life. Obviously, he never intended this term be considered the summa philosopica of his work. That's the reason of his later rejection of those words.

Read the book, think, then comment. Googled answers are boring.
 
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Thats the only way I've known the book to be titled. I don't own it but have seen it. I do have Mexican Notebooks. Either way he was an amazing photographer. One of the most important of the mid 20th century. He talks a lot of the moment when all the elements come together though I have never read where he calls it the decisive moment himself. In fact he kinda scolds Charley Rose for saying he coined the phrase in an interview with him.

But he did say this and he took his keynote text from the 17th century Cardinal de Retz: "Il n'y a rien dans ce monde qui n'ait un moment decisif" ("There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment").
 
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