10 Henri Cartier-Bresson Quotes to Shoot By
The decisive moment. Henri Cartier-Bresson is one of the photography masters that turned the mundane, into glorious works of art depicting everyday life. When I first began photography, I was obsessed with street photography. I watched as many videos I could in a day, about the greats like, Bruce Gilden, Joel Meyerowitz, and Lee Friedlander. Cartier-Bresson and his decisive moment changed photography forever. I find myself looking for that decisive moment all of the time, and I recommend looking more into some of the names I just wrote about.
Sevan Lake in Armenia (1972) / ©HCB
Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.
Think about the photo before and after, never during. The secret is to take your time. You mustn’t go too fast. The subject must forget about you. Then, however, you must be very quick.
To photograph: it is to put on the same line of sight the head, the eye and the heart.
In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little human detail can become a Leitmotiv.
During the work, you have to be sure that you haven’t left any holes, that you’ve captured everything, because afterwards it will be too late.
The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box.
To photograph is to hold one’s breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It’s at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.
To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression.
The photograph itself doesn’t interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality.
Actually, I’m not all that interested in the subject of photography. Once the picture is in the box, I’m not all that interested in what happens next. Hunters, after all, aren’t cooks.
If you haven’t then the time to look into Henri Cartier-Bresson’s work, I highly recommend it.
I have this book and it’s phenomenal: https://amzn.to/3bqDywh
