In
photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little human detail
can become a leitmotiv.— Henri
Cartier-Bresson
“Constant
new discoveries in chemistry and optics are widening considerably our field of
action. It is up to us to apply them to our technique, to improve ourselves,
but there is a whole group of fetishes which have developed on the subject of
technique. Technique is important only insofar as you must master it in order
to communicate what you see... The camera for us is a tool, not a pretty
mechanical toy. In the precise functioning of the mechanical object perhaps
there is an unconscious compensation for the anxieties and uncertainties of
daily endeavor. In any case, people think far too much about techniques and not
enough about seeing.” Henri Cartier-Bresson on technical aspects of
photography
Henri
Cartier-Bresson (August 22, 1908 – August 3, 2004) was a French humanist
photographer. Humanist Photography, also known as the School of Humanist Photography,
manifests the Enlightenment philosophical system in social documentary practice
based on a perception of social change.
It
emerged in the mid-twentieth-century and is associated most strongly with
Europe, particularly France, where the upheavals of the two world wars
originated, though it was a worldwide movement.
It
can be distinguished from photojournalism, with which it forms a sub-class of
reportage, as it is concerned more broadly with everyday human experience, to
witness mannerisms and customs, than with newsworthy events, though
practitioners are conscious of conveying particular conditions and social
trends, often, but not exclusively, concentrating on the underclasses or those
disadvantaged by conflict, economic hardship or prejudice. Humanist photography
"affirms the idea of a universal underlying human nature".
Jean Claude Gautrand describes humanist
photography as: a lyrical trend, warm, fervent, and responsive to the
sufferings of humanity [which] began to assert itself during the 1950s in
Europe, particularly in France ... photographers dreamed of a world of mutual
succor and compassion, encapsulated ideally in a solicitous vision.
Photographing
on the street or in the bistro primarily in black‐and‐white in available light with the
popular small cameras of the day, these image-makers discovered what the writer
Pierre Mac Orlan (1882-1970) called the 'fantastique social de la rue' (social
fantasticality of the street)and their style of image making rendered romantic
and poetic the way of life of ordinary European people, particularly in Paris.
Cartier-Bresson
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.
Cartier-Bresson
was one of the founding members of Magnum Photos in 1947.In the 1970s he took
up drawing—he had studied painting in the 1920s.
Although
Cartier-Bresson became frustrated with Lhote's "rule-laden" approach
to art, the rigorous theoretical training later helped him identify and resolve
problems of artistic form and composition in photography.
In
the 1920s, schools of photographic realism were popping up throughout Europe,
but each had a different view on the direction photography should take. The
Surrealist movement, founded in 1924, was a catalyst for this paradigm
shift[vague]. Cartier-Bresson began socializing with the Surrealists at the
Café Cyrano, in the Place Blanche. He met a number of the movement's leading
protagonists and was drawn to the Surrealist movement's technique of using the
subconscious and the immediate to influence their work.
Cartier-Bresson
matured artistically in this stormy cultural and political atmosphere. But,
although he knew the concepts, he couldn't express them; dissatisfied with his
experiments, he destroyed most of his early paintings.
Cartier-Bresson
almost 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."
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 be left uncropped so as to include a few
millimeters of the unexposed negative around the image area, resulting in a
black frame around the developed picture.
Cartier-Bresson
worked exclusively in black and white, other than a few unsuccessful attempts
in color.
He
started a tradition of testing new camera lenses by taking photographs of ducks
in urban parks. He never published the images but referred to them as 'my only
superstition' as he considered it a 'baptism' of the lens.
Cartier-Bresson
is regarded as one of the art world's most unassuming personalities. He
disliked publicity and exhibited a ferocious shyness since his days of hiding
from the Nazis during World War II. Although he took many famous portraits, his
face was little known to the world at large. This, presumably, helped allow him
to work on the street undisturbed. He denied that the term "art"
applied to his photographs. Instead, he thought that they were merely his gut
reactions to fleeting situations that he had happened upon.