Snapped By Cartier-Bresson

[Brian Atherton]

An article in yesterday's Graun:

http://www.theguardian.com/artandde...e-in-picture-henri-cartier-bresson-paris-park

 

[Erik van Straten]

Great story. Thank you that you've let us know, Brian. Now I want to have the "ZOOM" issue from May 1974.

I've found it immediately on eBay and bought it.

Erik.

 

[Richard G]

Looks too sharp to be HC-B. But yes, lovely story.

 

[Erik van Straten]

Looks too sharp to be HC-B.

Can you explain this opinion? I've seen hundreds of very sharp pictures by Cartier-Bresson, sharper than this one.

Erik.

 

[Richard G]

Lots of the prints I've seen are not sharp. And then there's the famous sharpness bourgeois concept statement. But you're right, many of the portraits are tack sharp.

 

[Erik van Straten]

then there's the famous sharpness bourgeois concept statement

That is of course a joke.

Erik.

 

[Richard G]

That is of course a joke.

Erik.

I don't know the context in which he might have said it or written it. And perhaps it was in French and has lost something in translation. I don't read it as merely a joke. It seems to have some significant truth to it.

 

[Erik van Straten]

Maybe you should read the biography of Cartier-Bresson by Pierre Assouline. It is translated. Cartier-Bresson was originally a surrealist and as such he loved funny statements like this one.

Erik.

 

[ChrisLivsey]

I don't know the context in which he might have said it or written it. And perhaps it was in French and has lost something in translation. I don't read it as merely a joke. It seems to have some significant truth to it.

The context is in taking a portrait of Helmut Newton towards the end of his life, it does not appear in print AFAIK directly written by HCB but is reported as said by HCB during the shoot by Newton:

"He had his little Leica," Newton remembers, "and he simply would point and shoot." Since Cartier-Bresson's hand isn't as steady as it used to be, some of the pictures were a bit fuzzy. "Sharpness," he told Newton, "is a bourgeois concept." Newton sits back and laughs: "I thought that was just divine."
The portrait session was July 4th 2000


Newsweek 6//2/03

http://europe.newsweek.com/opposites-attract-137833

I would categorize it as an off the cuff remark not a deeply thought out statement, that does not make it untrue nor that it was not his belief but may change the weight you give it as definitive.

The portrait used by Vanity Fair can be seen here:

https://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/shooting-past-80/vanity-fair-portfolio/
https://iconicphotos.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/img013.jpg

 

[bobbyrab]

Interesting that the Guardian seem to have cropped it. He should get his agent onto them.

 

[mfogiel]

It looks like they were really concentrated on the birds, so that HCB could calmly focus and shoot. This seems like a 50mm at f 4.0 from about 3-3,5 meters.

 

[bluesun267]

That is what I call gorgeous hunk of bokeh...like an impressionist painting surrounding an isolated point of photo-realism. Wonder what lens he was using at the time?

 

[semi-ambivalent]

Lots of the prints I've seen are not sharp. And then there's the famous sharpness bourgeois concept statement. But you're right, many of the portraits are tack sharp.

I've always thought this was less Bresson's remark about sharpness and more about his opinion of the bourgeois. He came from a wealthy family; this was just his little joke at the expense of those who had to work in the fields or mills for a living. He was a great photographer, but I've never understood the idolatry afforded him.

s-a

 

[bobbyrab]

I've always thought this was less Bresson's remark about sharpness and more about his opinion of the bourgeois. He came from a wealthy family; this was just his little joke at the expense of those who had to work in the fields or mills for a living. He was a great photographer, but I've never understood the idolatry afforded him.

s-a

I was thinking about this the other day when I showed my film student daughter Citizen Kane which we all know as being a revolutionary and ground breaking film establishing many film making conventions still used to this day, but it's much more difficult to see this so long after it's release due to it's dilution for having become, to some extent, the template for subsequent film makers.
Bresson, I think had an equally profound effect on the photographers that came after him to the point that it's originality and I think genius, becomes slightly obscured by having been so heavily borrowed from.
That said, I personally love his best work, and think it's still a strong and unique vision and very few photographers ever climb so high, but I get that it doesn't bowl everyone over.

 

[Brian Atherton]

Given HCB’s reticence about being in the public eye, I thought the article showed a side of his personality we don’t normally see; that he was approachable, happy to accommodate someone unknown to him, even to the extent of signing one of his prints for them.

…And what a wonderful image – one of the less well known ones. Obviously he had time to focus and compose rather than taking the photo on instinct.

 

[greyelm]

"

…And what a wonderful image – one of the less well known ones. Obviously he had time to focus and compose rather than taking the photo on instinct.

Brian, your comment nicely sums up what us old school photographers had to contend with. I am almost exclusively digital now, with all the bells and whistles and auto focus is taken for granted however I am still amused by the forum posts where people get very heated over one camera being milliseconds faster at focussing that the others when even the slowest is still faster than manual focussing in the old days.

 

[Brian Atherton]

...however I am still amused by the forum posts where people get very heated over one camera being milliseconds faster at focussing that the others when even the slowest is still faster than manual focussing in the old days.

Agreed, greyelm.. I'm old school, too - well, if being born in 1950 is old school. 😉