Famous Photographers - Part 16 (Chapter 1) - Henri Cartier-Bresson

Famous Photographers - Part 16 (Chapter 1) - Henri Cartier-Bresson

I was so impressed by the diversity of Cartier-Bresson's work, his technique, the subjects, the world wide locations and the number of great photos he has produced, that I will be posting not just this article, but three subsequent addenda. This one and the next will contain photos taken in Europe, the third will be photos taken in the Americas, and finally one of Asia, the Middle East and anywhere else. He has taken me "Around the World in 80 Hours" which is about as long a time it has taken me to admire and learn from his work, including due to some mishaps (clicking the wrong thing and wiping out all I had done so far), so here is the first of four chapters on the photography of Henri Cartier-Bresson.

The same as other famous photographers, Cartier-Bresson started off as a painter, and then became interested in photography. He led an interesting life as well, travelling the world. At one time he was arrested for illegal hunting and was released from his confinement for a few days to spend time with a photographer who gave him his first camera. During WWII he was captured by the Germans and spent years in a prisoner-of-war camp doing forced labour, but escaped successfully after a couple failed attempts. He hid in France, joined the underground, and dug up his beloved Leica in 1943 where he had buried it in a French farmland.

From Wikipedia (slightly edited by me):

Henri Cartier-Bresson August 22, 1908 – August 3, 2004) was a French humanist photographer considered a master of candid photography, and an early user of 35 mm film. He pioneered the genre of street photography, and viewed photography as capturing a decisive moment. His work has influenced many photographers.

Cartier-Bresson traveled to the United States in 1935 and spent more than three decades on assignment for LIFE and other journals. He traveled without bounds, documenting some of the great upheavals of the 20th century — the Spanish civil war, the liberation of Paris in 1944, the 1968 student rebellion in Paris, the fall of the Kuomintang in China to the communists, the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, the Berlin Wall, and the deserts of Egypt. Among other countries he photographed in [Africa,] Berlin, Brussels, Warsaw, Prague, Budapest and Madrid.

Cartier-Bresson's photography took him to many places, including China, Mexico, Canada, the United States, India, Japan, and the Soviet Union. He became the first Western photographer to photograph "freely" in the post-war Soviet Union. In 1962, on behalf of Vogue, he went to Sardinia for about twenty days.

A famous quotation:

"Photography is not like painting," Cartier-Bresson told the Washington Post in 1957. "There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative," he said. "Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever."

Technique:

Cartier-Bresson nearly always used a Leica 35 mm rangefinder camera fitted with a normal 50 mm lens, or occasionally a wide-angle lens for landscapes. He often wrapped black tape around the camera's chrome body to make it less conspicuous. With fast black and white film and sharp lenses, he was able to photograph events unnoticed. No longer bound by a 4×5 press camera or a medium format twin-lens reflex camera, miniature-format cameras gave Cartier-Bresson what he called "the velvet hand...the hawk's eye." He never photographed with flash, a practice he saw as "impolite...like coming to a concert with a pistol in your hand."

His first Leica camera

He believed in composing his photographs in the viewfinder, not in the darkroom. He showcased this belief by having nearly all his photographs printed only at full-frame and completely free of any cropping or other darkroom manipulation. He insisted that his prints were not cropped as they include the first few millimeters of the unexposed negative around the image area, resulting in a black frame around the developed picture.

Presented below is a collection I've amassed of about 50 of his European photos, which will be followed in the next chapter with about 50 more European photos. Most are titled and dated, but I might not have found the title or year of all of them. In some cases I have provided my "Buzz notes". For some of the photographs there is an explanation of the subject (which may or may not have been written by the photographer himself), and in others there is an actual quotation by the photographer, in which case I introduce it with "H.C-B:"

1.   FRANCE. Marseille. The Allée du Prado. 1932.  H.C-B:  "I was walking behind this man when all of a sudden he turned around. "

2.   FRANCE. Paris. The Quai St Bernard, near the Gare d'Austerlitz railway station. 1932.

3.   FRANCE. Paris. 15th arrondissement The Quai de Javel. Plasterers. 1932.

4.   FRANCE. Paris. Place de l'Europe. Gare Saint Lazare. 1932.

5.   FRANCE. Marseille. 1932.

6.   SPAIN. Valencia. 1933.

7.   BELGIUM. Brussels. 1932.

8.   SPAIN. Madrid. 1933.

9.   SPAIN. Barcelona. Barrio Chino. 1933.  H.C-B: "The narrow street of Barcelona's roughest quarter is the home of prostitutes, petty thieves and dope peddlers. But I saw a fruit vendor sleeping against a wall and was struck by the surprisingly gentle and articulate drawing scrawled there. "

10.   SPAIN. Andalucia. Seville. 1933.

11.   SPAIN. Valencia. 1933.  Inside the sliding doors of the bullfight arena.

12.   SPAIN. Andalucia. Seville. 1933.

13.   FRANCE. Alpes-Maritimes. Vence. February 1944. French painter Henri MATISSE at his home, villa "Le Rêve".

14.   Martine's Legs. 1967.

15.   FRANCE. Paris. The Palais Royal Gardens. 1959.

16.   GREAT BRITAIN. England. London. Hyde Park in the grey drizzle. 1937.

17.   FRANCE. The Var department. Hyères. 1932.

18.   FRANCE. Sunday on the banks of the River Seine. 1938.

19.   FRANCE. Brie. 1968.

20.   GREAT BRITAIN. London. Coronation of King George VI. 12 May 1937.  H.B-C:  "People had waited all night in Trafalgar Square in order not to miss any part of the coronation ceremony of George VI. Some slept on benches and others on newspapers. The next morning, one who was wearier than the others, had not yet wakened to see the ceremony for which he had kept such a late vigil."   (Buzz note:  I also read elsewhere that although he was commissioned to take photos at the coronation, he took many photos, but did not take even one photo of the King and Queen.)

21.   GREECE. Cyclades. Island of Siphnos. 1961.

22.   ITALY. Abruzzo. Scanno. 1951.

23.   Rue Mouffetard, Paris, 1954-1999

24.   A Cafe in Vieux-Port Marseilles, 1952

25.   The Berlin Wall, 1963

26.   Ile de La Cite, 1952

27.   France, Town of Aubervilliers

28.   Bass Player on the Road Belgrade-Kraljevo, to Play at a Village Festival Near Rudnik, Serbia, Yugoslavia, 1965

29.   Cardinal Wysznski Celebrating Mass, Warsaw, Poland, 1956

30.   Warsaw, Poland, 1956

31.   Gestapo Informer Recognized by a Woman She Had Denounced, Transit Camp, Dessau, Germany, 1945

32.   The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Paris, 1951  (Buzz note: A while ago I had posted a photo of them meeting with Hitler, a very friendly meeting. I read that if Hitler had conquered England, he would have set the Duke up to be king.  I think it's somewhat ironic that this photo happens to follow the previous one.)

33.   Cordoba, Spain, 1933

34.   Salerno, Italy, 1933

35.   Henri Matisse, Observing a Ceramic Vase by Pablo Picasso, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, 1951

36.   On the Place du Tertre, Montmartre, Paris, 1952

37.   Rue de Bassano, 8th Arrondissement, Paris, 1953

38.   Briancour, Province-Alpes-Cote d'Azur, France, 1951

39.   View From Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris, 1958  (Buzz note: One gets to see lots of photos OF the Cathedral, but this is the first time I've seen a photo FROM the Cathedral.)

40.   A Spanish Scene, Village of Ariza, Aragon, Spain

41.   Madrid, 1933   (Buzz note: The look on his face seems to be one of either fear or anger.)

42.   Cafe Lipp, Saint Germain-de-Pres, 1968  (Buzz note: Cartier-Bresson caught the expression on the face of the older woman, looking at the young girl disapprovingly.)

43.   Waiting in Trafalgar Square for the Coronation Parade of King George VI, London, May 12, 1937

44.   Alpes de Haute Provence, France, 1980 

45.   Boulevard Diderot, Paris, 1969

46.   Alberto Giacometti

47.   Marseilles, France

48.   Camondo Stairs, Galata, 1964

49.   Election of Christian Democrats in Germany, 1951

50.   Bastille Day Parade, 1980s

51.   Pamplona, July 1952

52.   Taxi Drivers, Berlin   (Buzz note:  On second thought, I think I'll take the bus.)

53.   Jeux Olympiques, Kiel, 1972  (Buzz note:  He does title many of his photos in French.)

To be continued in the next chapter (to be completed soon).