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 .
NickTrop said:
Wow... admins come in and mess with the poll. Hmmmm. Hmmmmm.
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The reality is that there are lots of photographers out there that are as good or better than HCB. If he lived today, you wouldn't know it. There's just a bigger talent pool available now.

I think some admins found on the interweb see their moderation powers as something real. Maybe they have really tiny lenses or are just bad photographers.
 
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semilog said:
He'd use a D40x in silent mode, with an AF Nikkor 35/1.8 DX. And he'd shoot circles around all the posers with M9's and 50 'Lux ASPH's.
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I guess if we lived in a bizarre enough alternate world that HCB was still alive, the Nikon D40x could gain a "silent mode". I think he would use a Holga.

NickTrop said:
To others who think he'd be scratching at his coffin - I don't think he'd "hate digital", I think he'd embrace it.
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I think you may have misunderstood the joke. People saying he "would be scratching at his coffin" were not saying that he "would be turning in his grave" because they think he would dislike digital so much, they were saying it because if HCB were alive where he is currently located (presumably in a coffin underground), he would be scratching at the coffin in an attempt to get out before he died (again), this time of suffocation. It was a funny joke.

rxmd said:
"If HCB were alive today, he would be an American" is no different from "If 2+2 equalled 5, HCB would be an American", or in fact from "If HCB had been Norwegian, he would be an American". All true.
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I think you may be confusing the terms "true" and "not false" here.
 
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He'd be shooting Sony A77, at 12 fps he would NEVER miss "decisive moment"...or as the poster above said he'd shoot video and pick stills from it:):)
 
Completely OT, but here is the wikipedia article which talks about this rather strange result. It was popularized as the "drinker paradox" by R. Smullyan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinker_paradox

rxmd said:
It's still true - since he isn't alive today, you can make all sorts of wrong assertions and the whole statement is still true. It's true by virtue of the precondition not being met, not by virtue of the assertion being correct.

"If HCB were alive today, he would be an American" is no different from "If 2+2 equalled 5, HCB would be an American", or in fact from "If HCB had been Norwegian, he would be an American". All true.
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DamenS said:
I guess if we lived in a bizarre enough alternate world that HCB was still alive, the Nikon D40x could gain a "silent mode". I think he would use a Holga.
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Whoops! Quiet mode was introduced in a D40x successor, the D5000. So that's what he'd use ;-)
 
He'd shoot digital and post on a MWAC/DWAC forums. Everyone would tell him what he's doing wrong. The image isn't sharp, too much contrast, a foot cut off, cropped at a joint, etc. In a couple of months, his images would be homogenized to the point of being indistinguishable from everyone else on the internet and he will be relegated to shooting maternity and newborns in Iowa.
 
He was among the firsts to adopt a small format/ large capacity camera, so he was a progressist.

He did stick to B&W and Leicas when color and SLRs where available, so he did stick to his choices even when they were not the only ones available.

So I go with Roger:

Maybe...
 
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NickTrop said:
Simple question. If HBC was in his prime today
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Impossible: he's been dead for over seven years, so he never was in his prime today.


Yet, I think that if he were alive today, there would be absolutely no way he'd be in his prime, since he'd be 103.
 
semilog said:
He'd use a D40x in silent mode, with an AF Nikkor 35/1.8 DX. And he'd shoot circles around all the posers with M9's and 50 'Lux ASPH's.
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Can't get more cliché than that.

I hate to think he'd engage in petty brand calling.

I'm pretty sure he'd be more inclined to stick to his drawing, specially given the kind of vitriol on the intertoobes.
 
I don't know whether he'd shoot film or digital but I can say for sure that he'd shoot himself in the head if he read this thread. Actually, I better leave or I may do the same.
 
Sean Moran said:
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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Dear Séan,

But the second half of the statement is not conditional. Rephrase it as "...he could be an American," and it is true.

We have at least one philosophy student in our midst and I'd be interested to hear their take on this.

Surely anyone who has read The Third Policeman would argue that Ireland is often counterfactual. As, come to think of it, are many Celtic countries.

Cheers,

R. (a fellow Celt, from Cornwall)
 
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