HCB"s Decisive Moment online

All of Doisneau's shots have the aspect of a tableau, much more the HCB's work (except a very few). I'm not sure his "moment in time" shots make him a genius, though. He was a genius for being a pioneer and for provoquing a new genre, yes!Decisive moments alone, my gallery is full of them, and it's not something I'm fretting all over. I think it's just overrated a little... But that's just me and I get the feeling I've hijacked this thread now. Oh well...:eek:

40oz said:
I kind of agreed at first. The I went back and really looked at the images a second time, looking for something I might be missing. Bresson was a painter and sketcher more than a photographer, apparently, and his compositions show that.

Number 11, in particular - the shadows back and forth on the ground. They would only look that way for a short time each day, meaning he either tripped across the scene or waited for the sun to be in the right spot and the shaodows to be spaced that way.

The man in number 16 unconsciously, in a moment of weariness, mirroring the graffiti on the wall behind him.

Number 26 is probably one of the most famous examples of a "decisive moment." He had to watch until the guy made his little jump into the puddle. There wouldn't have been time to shoot off 5 or so shots and pick the best of the series. I might have tried to capture the splash when the man's foot hit the water, but catching the shot just as the man's reflection cleared the ladder on the ground was almost genius. Not that he necessarily was going for that shot, but it seems he might have been. It's a picture a man might have painted.

The boy trying to steal a kiss in Number 51. A timeless moment instantly recognizable (well, to me, anyway :) ). No doubt a moment before or a moment after, the scene had changed, the gap between the two less telegraphic.

Number 64, where the women mirror the hanging cloth. Enough so it wasn't immediately apparent they were women.

Number 88, where the white space on the top so drastically contrasts with the incomprehensible mayhem of the men on the bottom portion.

A lot of his images have the aspect of a tableau, not a snapshot in time. It's almost as if all that happened before and after is irrelevant, merely set-up for the shot. I'm thinking that's where the title came from.
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either way, I wasn't all that impressed until I saw the collection of his shots together in that e-book. I don't feel he is the single most important photographer ever, but I do feel he did something worth looking at. Surely others did some of the same things. I just wanted to share some of the things I found that gave me a new appreciation for his work. Not to imply that everyone else pales in comparison by any means. :)
 
HCB is mythic! He only used a 50 mm lens. He only photographed in black and white. For all intensive purposes, he never let his photos be cropped. Look at the rigor and compositional geometry that all of his photos have. Look how he tells a story in every photo. It's not just that he caught those few amazing moments, but that he caught thousands of moments like that. He made a life-long career of catching moments. Yes, his work definitely has a style of voice and one could prefer hearing another voice, but the quality of his output is undeniable. I love that he was such a humanist. His work tells a wonderful story of what it's like to be alive: all of it's joy, suffering, and absurdity.
 
sirius said:
HCB is mythic! He only used a 50 mm lens. He only photographed in black and white. For all intensive purposes, he never let his photos be cropped. Look at the rigor and compositional geometry that all of his photos have. Look how he tells a story in every photo. It's not just that he caught those few amazing moments, but that he caught thousands of moments like that. He made a life-long career of catching moments. Yes, his work definitely has a style of voice and one could prefer hearing another voice, but the quality of his output is undeniable. I love that he was such a humanist. His work tells a wonderful story of what it's like to be alive: all of it's joy, suffering, and absurdity.
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He's maybe mythic, but I don't think it's hard to shoot like he did, with same results.
 
NB23 - you and I think alike.

As for HCB being a humanist, perhaps, but in his photos only, certainly not as a person (he's a declared anarchist!!! and calls that an "ethic" if you can believe it).
 
Im dumbfounded by a couple comments that have been made here. HCB is the single greatest photographer ever by my standards. I apperciate other photographers but this single man produced more pictures of the style I prefer that I simply find him to be the best. I was trying to copy his style before I even knew it was his style. I wanted my pictures to look like his pictures before I knew his name. For anyone who does not see his greatness I challange you to look further, the pictures speak for themselves.


Legendary Photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson, 95, Dies in France​

PARIS, France (August 4, 2004)—Henri Cartier-Bresson, 95, the legendary pillar of modern photojournalism who documented half a century of history by capturing it in iconic images that he called "decisive moments," one of the founding members of Magnum Photos who eventually put his camera down to return to his first love of drawing and painting, has died at his home in southern France.



h_cartier_bresson_magnum.jpg

[Henri Cartier-Bresson: The 'father of photojournalism,' Henri Cartier-Bresson, seen in 1972 in Forcalquier, the Alpes de Haute-Provence, France, has died in his home at the age of 95. Photograph © by Martine Franck/Magnum Photos.]​

His family released a brief statement from Paris tonight: "The family of Henri Cartier-Bresson, the Foundation Henri Cartier-Bresson, and the photographers and staff of Magnum Photos are sad to announce the death of Henri Cartier-Bresson on the 3rd of August at 9:30 a.m., in his house in the county of Luberon (France). His funeral was held in the strictest of privacy. A commemoration will be held in honor of his memory at the beginning of September." No other details were available.

"He was perhaps the greatest photographer of the 20th century. There will never be another Henri Cartier-Bresson," said photography editor John G. Morris, a lifelong personal friend of Cartier-Bresson and the author of Get The Picture: A Personal History of Photojournalism. Cartier-Bresson inspired countless generations of photographers. His images in Life, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and hundreds of magazines and books are as much art as they are photographs. His images have been shown in the leading museums of the world and constituted the first-ever photographic exhibit at the Louvre.

Cartier-Bresson was born August 22, 1908, outside Paris to a wealthy family with a thriving textile business. The International Herald Tribune reports that in the early 1900s, "almost every French sewing kit was stocked with Cartier-Bresson thread." At 20, as the oldest child who was expected to carry on the family business, Cartier-Bresson abandoned the textiles to study art and painting. His interest in photography didn't blossom until 1930 when he traveled around central Europe taking pictures. His travel photographs appeared in several magazines and were followed by his first show in 1933 in Spain, after which his career as a photojournalist of significance took flight.

Using small Leica rangefinders, and usually 50mm lenses and black and white film and relying only on existing light, he captured scenes of simple daily street life and devastating global war, the faces of both the famous and the unknown. Working on big stories as well as showing life's smallest, nearly invisible details, he made pictures at the exact moment when all the elements of a scene or its peak action came into place, when an image had its greatest "significance" or, as he termed it, was at its most "decisive" moment.

In 2003 as Cartier-Bresson's 95th birthday approached, Morris wrote a tribute to him in "A Letter From Paris" for News Photographer magazine. The two became friends in August 1944, just days after Paris was liberated from German occupation, and they remained friends for life, later working together at Magnum Photos where Morris was executive director and Cartier-Bresson one of the agency's founding photographers. Morris almost always fondly referred to his friend Cartier-Bresson as "HCB."

"I arrived in Paris from London, a stranger, to take charge of Life's Paris bureau," Morris remembered. "It was temporarily in a room in the Hotel Scribe. Robert Capa says: 'I have a friend who can help you. He speaks English and knows his way around. His name is Henri Cartier-Bresson.' I had never heard of him, but the next morning a slight, blue-eyed young man shows up at the door of the Scribe. We go off on foot, making the rounds of photographers and picture agencies, including Wide World, in the deserted New York Times office. Henri takes me home for a simple lunch, apologizing, 'We don't buy on the black market.' I learn that he had been living and photographing underground, after escaping from a German prison camp.'"

Serving in the French Army, Cartier-Bresson had been captured in 1940 during the Battle of France and was a German prisoner of war for three years, twice attempting escape before success on his third attempt. He returned to Paris and after the war resumed photography. In 1937 he married Ratna Mohini, a dancer. In 1947, along with Robert Capa and David Seymour, he cofounded Magnum Photos. And in 1970 he married Martine Franck. Together they had a daughter, Melanie.

Cartier-Bresson's landmark book was The Decisive Moment, published in 1952. In 1960 a 400-print exhibit toured the United States, and on April 28, 2003, the Bibliotheque Nationale's Grand Galerie opened the largest one-man show in its history, called "Henri Cartier-Bresson: De qui s'agit-il?" (Who is he?). Morris said, "Its five-pound 'catalogue,' published in French by Gallimard and in English by Thames and Hudson, reproduced the show's 602 items, not to mention listing his 109 books and catalogues, 800 picture stories in magazines and newspapers, 270 photo exhibitions, 38 exhibitions of his drawings, his 14 films, and the 11 films and 320 articles about him."

The next day, April 29, the Foundation Henri Cartier-Bresson opened with champagne at its newly refurbished five-story landmark building near the Gare Montparnasse. "Henri, as usual, tried to hide," Morris wrote afterwards. Cartier-Bresson strongly disliked being photographed and rarely granted interviews. Morris said, "The Foundation was the housekeeping solution of Henri's wife, Magnum photographer Martine Franck, for disposing of Henri's treasures of a lifetime -- 'He never throws anything away.'" Morris said, "HCB agreed to the Foundation on condition that the building be 'neither a museum nor a mausoleum.'"

Then, when Cartier-Bresson's expertise and fame were near its peak, he put down his camera. After photographing French President General Charles de Gaulle's funeral in 1970, Cartier-Bresson visited Morris in New York City. Morris was the photography editor of The New York Times in those days, and he arranged a dinner with newspaper's photography staff. "I did not realize it at the time, but just about then two things occurred that would change Henri's future," Morris wrote. "He had fallen in love with Martine Franck, then a photographer with Visa. And he had experienced a rebirth of his previous passion, to be an 'artist.' To him this meant sketching and painting. The two occurrences were not unrelated; one photographer in a family is normally enough, and Martine is very talented."

"Henri found a further excuse to quit photography in the advice of his longtime friend Teriade, publisher of The Decisive Moment, who told him that he had done everything that could be done in photography," Morris recalled. "Teriade was partly right. From the standpoint of style, Henri had scarcely deviated from his earliest work. But from the point of view of content, Teriade unfortunately proposed that Henri turn his back on the balance of the 20th century. History was the loser. However, thanks to Robert Delpire, who became Henri's editor, his pre-1970 work took the form of an unparalleled photographic commentary on our times."

Morris remembers warning Cartier-Bresson once, after critics reviewed his artwork without mentioning his earlier photographs, "If you're not careful, you're going to go down in history as a painter, not as a photographer." Morris said Cartier-Bresson replied, "I'm just a jack of all trades."

It was well known that Cartier-Bresson did not want his photographs to be cropped by picture editors. John Morris remembers, "At Magnum there were two rubber stamps used on Henri's press prints. One said that the photo should not be altered by cropping; the other said that the photograph should not be used in a way that violates the context in which it is taken. One stamp for BEAUTY, of form; one stamp for TRUTH."

Michael Evans was a staff photographer at The New York Times when Morris was the picture editor and was working there when Morris once convinced Cartier-Bresson to take a Times photography assignment for a "second front" feature -- a story that leads the second section's front page. "Morris worked with Cartier-Bresson on the final image, and the page was all laid out and there were strict orders left with the desk not to crop the image under any circumstances," Evans remembers. "Well, of course something happened, and the page got changed, and the image got cropped. And Henri went ballistic."

Trying to deal with the incident, Evans remembers, Morris went in and met with the newspaper's executive editor, Abe Rosenthal. "John said something to the effect of, 'We've got a problem, Henri's picture was cropped,'" Evans said, "and Rosenthal said, 'Well who the (expletive) is Henri Cartier-Bresson?' Then later Henri, in his exceptional French/English, responded in a similar fashion, 'Who the (expletive) is Abe Rosenthal?' I think it was the last assignment Cartier-Bresson shot for the Times," Evans said with a laugh.

Cartier-Bresson is survived by his wife, Martine Franck, and their daughter, Melanie.
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NB23 said:
He's maybe mythic, but I don't think it's hard to shoot like he did, with same results.
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Perhaps all this veneration disgusts you? The proof is in the pudding. If it is easy then more people would be doing it! Maybe his pictures have been seen so much that they loose their impressiveness.

HBC had a blustery style of speaking. He seemed very French to me, by which I mean he had the French style of debate/education that is more confrontational than the English style. There are many meanings to the term "anarchist" that he used in the interview, he was not clear what his definition was. I don't think it meant he advocated terrorism and tossing bombs around. It is perhaps more related to freedom of thought.

I disagree with you. I don't think anyone can easily do what he did. Undoubtedly, work with a similar spirit and quality of seeing is possible. So you don't appreciate his work. It makes no difference. You'll find your inspiration elsewhere then. History will still be kind to HCB.
 
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sirius said:
Perhaps all this veneration disgusts you? The proof is in the pudding. If it is easy then more people would be doing it! Maybe his pictures have been seen so much that they loose their impressiveness.

HBC had a blustery style of speaking. He seemed very French to me, by which I mean he had the French style of debate/education that is more confrontational than the English style. There are many meanings to the term "anarchist" that he used in the interview, he was not clear what his definition was. I don't think it meant he advocated terrorism and tossing bombs around. It is perhaps more related to freedom of thought.

I disagree with you. I don't think anyone can easily do what he did. Undoubtedly, work with a similar spirit and quality of seeing is possible. So you don't appreciate his work. It makes no difference. You'll find your inspiration elsewhere then. History will still be kind to HCB.
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The web and my writing skills can't do my thoughts justice. I too believe he is the Jesus of PJ. I just think there is better (but they weren't the first).
Peace.
 
Cartier-Bresson is much like Jesus in at least one respect -- today it is nearly impossible to judge either of them on their individual merits and accomplishments. They are too much surrounded by their reputations to be viewed with objective discovery.
 
I mailed a few copies out but two were bad e-mail accounts. If you did not already get one send me another PM with a new e-mail account. Somebody let me know if they worked and downloaded ok too, If not I will send them by a diffrent route.
 
Bryan Lee said:
I mailed a few copies out but two were bad e-mail accounts. If you did not already get one send me another PM with a new e-mail account. Somebody let me know if they worked and downloaded ok too, If not I will send them by a diffrent route.
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Bryan,

I'd appreciate one, too, please!

nenad.bojic(at)hec.ca
 
HCB had the plates destroyed for a book! He has just gone way down in my estimations. At least one can argue that a negative can only be printed by the photographer to produce a faithful 'vision', but plates for a book.....
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Monz Ahmed

Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Man, the Image and the World: A Retrospective

Hope it has some of the pictures from "The Decisive Moment." The price is certainly more palatable. Does anyone have the above book?

--
Monz



Flyfisher Tom said:
Monz,

I have that one, it is an excellent compilation, you won't be disappointed.

cheers
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I received the book today. It is great :) Over 600 photos, many from 'The Decisive Moment.' If anyone else is thinking about getting this book, I can heartily recommend it.

--
Monz
 
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