If Henri Cartier-Bresson was alive today would he shoot film or digital?

If Henri Cartier-Bresson was alive today would he shoot film or digital?

  • Digital

    Votes: 108 60.7%

  • Film

    Votes: 34 19.1%

  • None of the above. He quit photography to be a painter - admin choice added

    Votes: 36 20.2%
  • Total voters
    178
  • Poll closed .
I think HCB would be so disgusted with the suspicion now directed (and voiced !) at lone males surreptitiously snapping in public places that he'd forsake street photography - perhaps ALL photography - entirely.
His style of photography flourished when the world was a gentler, simpler, more innocent place.
It will never be that way again...
 
HCB was at the beginning of small format photography when it wasn't taken seriously. Would he change into digital? its hard to say. The only clue available is that he did not change to MF as it became more widely used. He stuck with his small format.
 
dabick42 said:
I think HCB would be so disgusted with the suspicion now directed (and voiced !) at lone males surreptitiously snapping in public places that he'd forsake street photography - perhaps ALL photography - entirely.
His style of photography flourished when the world was a gentler, simpler, more innocent place.
It will never be that way again...
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I'd say that suspicion is less about a gentler, simpler and more innocent world and more about how women were treated in the past (as men we could photograph and do as we pleased because we are men) and things that may have been ignored or not voiced (pedophilia) now being common knowledge.
 
Counterfactual Conditionals

Counterfactual Conditionals

Roger Hicks said:
Dear Nick,

If Henri Cartier-Bresson was alive today would he shoot film or digital?

Probably. But he might also decide not to bother with either, and stick with painting or drawing.

All counterfactual conditionals are true.

Cheers,

R.
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Are you sure about your logical assertion, Roger? (All counterfactual conditionals are true). I'm not entirely convinced. Take the counterfactual conditional 'If HCB were alive today, he would be an American'. That's surely not true.

All the best,

Seán in Tipperary (A long way from being a counterfactual county)
 
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Roger Hicks said:
Dear Nick,

If Henri Cartier-Bresson was alive today would he shoot film or digital?

Probably. But he might also decide not to bother with either, and stick with painting or drawing.

All counterfactual conditionals are true.

Cheers,

R.
Click to expand...

Agree. I am convinced he would have quitted photography and sticked to painting much earlier in his carreer.
 
I'd go with a GRD IV with an optical viewfinder in the shoe (snap focus setting). Tiny, pocketable, responsive with a good lens.

I'd go with an X1 with optical VF but the doggy focusing speed might have put the quash on that.
 
Oh for goodness sake.

I know this is for fun but this question is like "If red were blue and the sun shone at night and the moon were made of green cheese what colour would it be at midnight in September?"
 
If we talk about HCB and not about a different person born in a more modern world, I really doubt he would accept the hassle of batteries and memories and technology that can fail. He liked reliable mechanical cameras able to shoot anytime.

Cheers,

Juan
 
Whatever he was using he'd have someone following him around with a video cam so he could make one of those really cool you tube clips on being a street photographer!
 
He may have shot digital - but it would be a big mistake .

Instead of stalking the moment, he might end up using the camera like a video recorder. Maybe he would "chimp", too. ;-)

Randy
 
He was a photojournalist working for a leading news agency, why on earth would he be using an X100, or GRD ? He gave up photography when he stopped working, which is what many pros do. No pay, no interest !

Can only assume that now, as then, he'd be using the same kit as his Magnum colleagues do today - Canon 5D, or 1D MkIV! for the jpeg and video.

Was talking to Chris Steele-Perkins two weeks ago in the Magnum Print Room. He told me that he hasn't used film for over 5 years and probably never will again. He uses a 5D. I let him handle my M9-P, (he'd never handled a digital M before) and he seemed a little lost and stated that he'd never spend that amount of money on a camera.

Decorators don't have an irresistible urge to keep using a roller and paint when they're not being paid to do so. Often the same with professional photographers. It's a job !
 
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Magnum didn't exist in the '30s (which is when I'd call HCB 'in his prime' as that's still the most interesting work, IMO). He wasn't exactly a wire-service PJ in those days. Given that he never (at least with any regularity) shot with a SLR (his career continued after the intro of the Nikon F) or TLR (in the days of Rolleiflex being common), I don't know that he'd be shooting a big dSLR.

If not a X100 or other mirrorless, perhaps a M9 then - it's not like those are unknown in the halls of Magnum.


David Alan Harvey's current Rio project looks to be ~50% Nikon D700 and 50% GF1/M9.
 
peterm1 said:
Oh for goodness sake.

I know this is for fun but this question is like "If red were blue and the sun shone at night and the moon were made of green cheese what colour would it be at midnight in September?"
Click to expand...

After consulting the Magic-8 ball, the exact and precise answer is, "Perhaps".
 
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