hcb quote

back alley

back alley

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For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. In order to “give a meaning” to the world, one has to feel involved in what one frames through the viewfinder. This attitude requires concentration, discipline of mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry. It is by economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression.

To take a photograph is to hold one’s breath when all faculties converge in a face of fleeing reality. It is at that moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.

To take a photograph means to recognize – simultaneously and within a fraction of a second– both the fact itself and the rigorous organisation of visually perceived forms that give it meaning.

It is putting one’s head, one’s eye, and one’s heart on the same axis.
 
back alley said:
...

It is putting one’s head, one’s eye, and one’s heart on the same axis.
Click to expand...

That's a beautiful statement - Is this a response to some recent argument about aesthetics?

In any event, thanks for posting that quote which I never saw before - I will "keep" that last sentence.

Randy
 
Great quotes for sure. The Charlie Rose interview with HCB along with an awareness of these quotes really puts things in perspective.:)
 
LOL, well, OK. For 'sense of geometry' one could easily substitute 'spatial relationships, patterns and shapes'. I doubt he is referring to geometry in the mathematical sense i.e. get your school text books and protractor out, but I could be wrong.

Maybe Leica could put another little lever on their M series, not for frame lines, but for various geometrical overlays? :D
 
he was talking about geometric shapes...there are a few interviews where he speaks of seeing shapes as he composes...making the elements in the image and the shapes work together.
 
back alley said:
It is putting one’s head, one’s eye, and one’s heart on the same axis.
Click to expand...

Last year my uncle was visiting, and he read this quote on the back of my HCB book at the end of my book case. His response was "what pretentious bull!". I told him to talk to talk to his brother, because he gave me the book.

Later my dad visited, and made almost the same comment (two peas in a pod?). I told him "you gave me this book!".

I tend to think in general artist statements like this are interesting and relevant in context to the artists work, but not necessarily meaningful in a wider context. These ideas were radical at the time, but have been superseded by lots of other approaches over the last 60 years. As a photographer you are free to take ideas and inspiration from anywhere, and I suppose HCB is not a bad place to start.
 
Turtle said:
LOL, well, OK. For 'sense of geometry' one could easily substitute 'spatial relationships, patterns and shapes'. I doubt he is referring to geometry in the mathematical sense i.e. get your school text books and protractor out, but I could be wrong.

Maybe Leica could put another little lever on their M series, not for frame lines, but for various geometrical overlays? :D
Click to expand...

Geometry is the mathematics of spaces, patterns and shapes. You may substitute one for the other, but the meaning remains the same.
 
Cartier-Bresson was a very delicate photographer in the street: he didn't like to be detected, and he didn't use to change his point of view several times from left to right or go a lot closer to the subject, which are the only ways a photographer has to really make by him/herself a variation in the relationship between shapes on an image... When he referred to the importance of geometry, he never talked about that as a planned situation, but as a moment when his intuition felt things were clean and just worked... Never about any rule or grid of lines... His yes, no, yes, no, yes was a very fast thing, and most of the times it was generated by subject's movement, and not by his movements (almost none): he never tried to make geometric relations appear close to or conform any preconceived system... Indeed he expressed lots of times he didn't like to think in any way while shooting... That was HCB in his own words... In my opinion, he could do great images anywhere, and he was able to find decisive moments for any subject more than once... Of course he did shoot more than once in front of subjects, with different geometric results and in different decisive moments to him... Something like what Winogrand used to say: "There's no special way any photograph should look like..."

Cheers,

Juan
 
I think it is worthwhile remembering that HCB considered himself a surrealist. He was interested revealing a reality that existed hidden in ordinary reality. His interest in seeing geometry was in line with what a lot of modernists were concerned with at the time. Cubism, the Bauhaus, Constructivism etc. HCB's contribution to that was to freeze geometries and compositions that only existed for a fleeting moment.
I think his later work was less about this idea, as he became progressively more interested in his subjects and less in 'the shapes they were making in space' as it were.
 
j j said:
Geometry is the mathematics of spaces, patterns and shapes. You may substitute one for the other, but the meaning remains the same.
Click to expand...

Naturally, but in reference to the earlier 'unmentionable thread' its the degree of analysis/complexity that I was referring to. Some could read HCB's comment on appreciating geometry to signal 'lots of complexity and complicated names for things' whereas I suspect he meant the more simplistic 'shapes/patterns' bit. I am sure his sophistication was considerable, but also suspect the level on which these things were considered was more intuitive and imprinted than the comment on geometry could be interpreted. I doubt he shot a scene and thought, "oh boy, those people formed a cracking medial triangle within the anticomplimentary form of the tent."
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfwNrPX2pvw&feature=related

Another video detailing his views on the importance of luck, geometry, etc... I think his line about having an awareness of geometry, yet not thinking about it cuts to the core of all this recent debate.

Let's not forget that he shot his most famous photograph totally blind by sticking the lens between two slats in a fence and firing the shutter.
 
Juan Valdenebro said:
Cartier-Bresson was a very delicate photographer in the street: he didn't like to be detected, and he didn't use to change his point of view several times from left to right or go a lot closer to the subject, which are the only ways a photographer has to really make by him/herself a variation in the relationship between shapes on an image... When he referred to the importance of geometry, he never talked about that as a planned situation, but as a moment when his intuition felt things were clean and just worked... Never about any rule or grid of lines... His yes, no, yes, no, yes was a very fast thing, and most of the times it was generated by subject's movement, and not by his movements (almost none): he never tried to make geometric relations appear close to or conform any preconceived system... Indeed he expressed lots of times he didn't like to think in any way while shooting... That was HCB in his own words... In my opinion, he could do great images anywhere, and he was able to find decisive moments for any subject more than once... Of course he did shoot more than once in front of subjects, with different geometric results and in different decisive moments to him... Something like what Winogrand used to say: "There's no special way any photograph should look like..."

Cheers,

Juan
Click to expand...
Juan, where did you get this insight into HCB's working methods and psyche? I once saw some footage of HCB photographing in, I think it was London, and you see him flitting around these people with fast movements and quite close as he photographs them, not at all still and patient as you've described. That's not to say he didn't also photograph as you imagine him to, but I do remember an English writer describing watching him work, and he was described as having beautiful movement as he photographed, I can't remember the writer I'm afraid, perhaps someone else here can.
I would also have to disagree with you on the geometry of his work, are you saying that he wasn't thinking about the geometry of the image as he composed it, that his photographs don't again and again exhibit a complete mastery of classic elements of composition. if yes, are we talking about the same photographer, are there two HCB perchance.
 
I was under the impression that he was passive and patient when it suited, as well as active and mobile when it suited. There seems to be be plenty of evidence for him simply applying the appropriate solution at the appropriate time, as one might expect.
 
Hi bobbyrab,

What I think and wrote is he stated lots of times he didn't think of geometry... He insisted he just couldn't explain... He said he couldn't even teach it as it was not a preconceived order or system he was trying to create, but an instant reaction to compositions he suddenly felt that would work... He repeated he didn't know how he decided to shoot: I've seen that on several interviews... He just felt when the moment was right... I really think he was a very sensitive man to form (to an unusual level), and I think no one can get there by studying form or by shooting with any geometrical patterns in mind... Maybe (I'm not sure, though..) it can help some people create with more confidence, but to be that sensitive and fast with form and geometry, you need to be born with it. Just my opinion, of course...

Cheers,

Juan
 
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Turtle said:
I was under the impression that he was passive and patient when it suited, as well as active and mobile when it suited. There seems to be be plenty of evidence for him simply applying the appropriate solution at the appropriate time, as one might expect.
Click to expand...

This is what I've understood about the way he worked; he could and did wait patiently at a particular spot for the elements of a photo to come together, and perhaps this is where his sense of geometry and formal training in art was most prominent (not that it played no part in his photojournalistic work).

The large show of HCB photographs at SFMOMA late last year underscored two things for me about HCB: (1) he did have masterful sense of composition, whether it was the result of formal training in aesthetics or study of geometry or whatever; and (2) he had an uncanny ability to appear invisible to his subjects. Juan alludes to this in his post above. In so many of the photographs by HCB of groups of people or crowds, in which he was clearly standing very close to his subjects, no one in the photo appears to be looking at him. I would love to know how he did that...
 
Wordless debate

Wordless debate

What ever inspires...

I wish this discussion could be illustrated and conducted using photos.
Those into formality can show us something awsome and those more intuitive can astound as well. I dont think folks tend to argue when something beautiful is in front of them...

Could it be that the result is the same and we just percieve the process differently?




back alley said:
For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. In order to “give a meaning” to the world, one has to feel involved in what one frames through the viewfinder. This attitude requires concentration, discipline of mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry. It is by economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression.

To take a photograph is to hold one’s breath when all faculties converge in a face of fleeing reality. It is at that moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.

To take a photograph means to recognize – simultaneously and within a fraction of a second– both the fact itself and the rigorous organisation of visually perceived forms that give it meaning.

It is putting one’s head, one’s eye, and one’s heart on the same axis.
Click to expand...
 
Juan,

I suggest that you read "Henri Cartier-Bresson and the Artless Art"; a thesis by Jean-Pierre Montier that deeply analyzes HC-B's work and the man himself. There is an entire chapter devoted to the HC-B's use of classical geometry. Whether instinctive or not, HC-B's sense for classical geometry and devine proportion is essential to the success of his images, both when taking the image and in the editing phase. He may have been born with "a good eye" but it was cultivated through the teachings of Andre L'hote and HC-B's own study of past masters.

Montier quotes HC-B on page 226:
"It is written in the Gospels: In the beginning there was the Word. Well, in my case: In the beginning there was geometry. I spend my time tracing and calculating proportions in the little books I always carry with me containing reproductions of paintings. And it is this that I rediscover in reality: in all chaos, there is order."
Click to expand...

...on page 234:
"Like Giacometti, I want to be as precise as possible, to carry out abstraction from nature, as in photography, as in the sciences, find the structure of the world -- rejoice in the voluptuousness of form... "
Click to expand...

... and so on.

Also Matt (mto'brien) posted above, a link to an excellent video where HC-B talks about geometry.
 
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