Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri Cartier-Bresson is the master of what I aspire to achieve in my photography. He “seizes the moment” as he, himself, describes it. He believes that it is not the photograph that dictates life; it is life that dictates the photograph, thus defining photojournalism at its finest.

In fact, Cartier-Bresson motivated the very person who is quoted as the inspiration for the name of this blog: Elliott Erwitt. Erwitt stated that it was Cartier-Bresson who first showed him that a photographer does not have to be some sort of artistic miracle-worker. Instead, he or she must only be able to see the world through the eyes of a person who loves life and sees every moment, every breath, as artwork in and of itself: “Art in the ordinary” at it’s finest. To him, life speaks for itself; it is only the photographer’s job to give it a medium through which to speak.

In this sense, after learning more of Cartier-Bresson, I believe that his style of photography reflects the style that I would most like to achieve in the future, as well as in my photography now. In Cartier-Bresson’s own words: “You see, you feel, and the surprised eye responds.” He describes the importance of geometry, structure, the eye, the heart and the mind, all of which I value in the photographs I have taken to this day.

As he also said, the photographs that he has taken over the years have become, in essence, a personal history if his life: memories in ink. I am lucky enough to have started taking photos at a young age. In sixty years, after this time has become distant and the stuff of nostalgia, I hope that my photography will be as charming as his photography from the 50s and 60s.

Thus, if I continue to channel these concepts, as well as specifically and deliberately focusing on them, I hope to achieve even a fraction of the beauty of Cartier-Bresson’s photography. 

NOTE: Picture on left is a Cartier-Bresson photograph from http://habituallychic.blogspot.com/2010/04/henri-cartier-bresson-modern-century.html. The picture on the right is my own, taken in Sante Fe in 2010.