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

[literiter]

Right - in my original post I clarified this, if he was in his prime today.

Yeah, sorry! I just now realized this.

 

[---f]

Wow... admins come in and mess with the poll. Hmmmm. Hmmmmm.

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.

 

[DamenS]

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

I think you may be confusing the terms "true" and "not false" here.

 

[Brian Legge]

I'd expect him to shoot video. 🙂

 

[zvos1]

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🙂🙂

 

[anerjee]

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

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.

 

[semilog]

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.

Whoops! Quiet mode was introduced in a D40x successor, the D5000. So that's what he'd use ;-)

 

[jwc57]

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.

 

[DamenS]

Whoops! Quiet mode was introduced in a D40x successor, the D5000. So that's what he'd use ;-)

LOL - yeah, I have a D40x, so briefly got excited when I read your first comment 🙂

 

[AgentX]

If Cartier-Bresson were alive today, he'd be frantically clawing at the inside of his coffin.

Thank you for saving this thread!

 

[NickTrop]

I think you may have misunderstood the joke.

LOL - yes, I did misunderstand the joke... To many posts to read... too tired 🙂

 

[nebraska]

Who cares? He is dead. Go and take pictures like he did and do it with whatever medium you are comfortable with.

 

[Jobin33]

Who cares? He is dead. Go and take pictures like he did and do it with whatever medium you are comfortable with.

I agree...

 

[sanmich]

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...

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Simple question. If HBC was in his prime today

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.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

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.

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.

 

[jsrockit]

JSRocket... LOL, what the hell is that.. maybe I should return the lumix I bought for my wife today and reconsider...😀

I'm sure she'd appreciate the LX5 more... 😀

 

[Ronny]

iPhone 4S with 4G 🙂

 

[Jamie123]

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.

 

[Roger Hicks]

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)

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)