Henri Cartier Bresson
Henri Cartier Bresson's work is greatly educational in understanding life and photography in its ethical context. His work is a rich and true insight into life and its living which approaches nature in a 'spirit of enquiry'. His photographs teach us much about people and life, and Bresson's decisive moment can become our own to experience. Can photographs be made with an air of moral consciousness, deciding where we have the right to photograph and where we should not intrude. The camera is an honest medium if used wisely, an extension of inner consciousness, where beliefs and morals are externalised within images.
Henri Cartier Bresson is one of the few 20th century photographers to suggest the degree to which his work can still be an expression of common humanity. He seems to desire no self gratification and his work grows from a reverence for people, needing not to judge, but to share and understand. His position has never been intrusive, and he has a tremendous appetite for experience; everyday life possesses a density and magic for him, and Bresson lives with his Leica in hand, constantly hunting for images, on the lookout, day and night. Turning to contact with others, to the most varied of places and things, he searches for the surprise that will break familiarization with life and may even free our minds. Cartiei Bresson's motto was - "Above all pay attention to life!" The camera was his ideal tool to accomplish this, and he devoted himself to photography for almost half a century.
Bresson's photographs contain many hidden surprises or underlying relationships, to do with questions. Each time he presses the shutter, the photograph made becomes a question mark. A distinctive situation where one of his photographs posed such a question came about the time of my discovery of photography. A singular photograph mystically held my attention, and still adheres vividly in my visual memory. The photograph is 'Behind the Gare St Lazare', taken in Paris 1932. A mysterious essence was present within this photograph; the mystery for me was how Eresson was able to so quickly catch the analogy between the running man and the poster of the dancer. There is a great irony present between the running man and the poster - how the suppleness of the dancer is mocked by the stiff legged lurch of the man jumping across the water, Eresson caught the exact moment before the mud sucks and the ripples spread over the water. The man jumps from the ladder, which is the only solid ground within the water, to nowhere of visible solidity, which is of a spiritual significance, communicating the inner spirit to the outside world. How did Bresson was able to catch the 'immediacy of life' in this decisive moment- singular photograph that releases great excitement and enthusiasm.
'Rue Mouffetard' in Paris, 1954, is another photograph of Bresson's with great monumentality. Who is the young French boy strutting proudly through the market district, carrying two bottles of wine, as if they are some great trophies? This child appears no different from any other child, apart from his appearance and physical features. He, as all children, is proud of being trusted, loves laughter, running, or many other pursuits and experiences, the simplest of feelings and emotions. He is also a part of me, of all of us, and in a sense he is also history. His photographs seem to reach a point of orienteering and warning; they are a way of remembering what we are, and how easily the little we know about ourselves may be forgotten! I wonder how such things are changing for bette or for worse; Cartier Bresson reminds us what using our eyes can mean, and this is the great wholeness of his photographic expression.
The Decisive Moment
Bresson's decisive moment may hold no more than a glance or the barest gesture of an ordinary day, for he believes that humanity is best revealed in the course of action, no matter how insignifcant this action may be. There are certain moments of time where elements of the great continuum of life suddenly merge together and make sense; such instances become his decisive moments of picture making. His composition is an instinctive reaction, a sure reflex, which gives reality its fulness in his Photography. He sees, composes and presses the shutter sometimes in a fraction of a second.
Another example of his composition is the moving photograph of the two Athenian women, seen in profile as they pass underneath two, great caryatids, viewed face-on, young and naked. Here is a a juxtaposition of old age and youth, deformity and beauty. There is a tension uniting the statues with the women beneath, which was rapidly perceived and photographed.
Henri Cartier Bresson and Eugen Herrigel's ' Zen in the Art of Archery
The following quotation sums up Bresson's feelings: "I went to Marseille . A small allowance enabled me to get along, and I worked with enjoyment. I had just discovered the Leica. It became the extension of my eye, and I have never been separated from it since I found it. I prowled the streets all day, feeling very strung up and ready to pounce, determined to 'trap' life - to preserve life in the act of living. Above all I craved to seize the whole essence ' the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes".
It is as if his camera were one with his eyes and his whole being. He quotes an essay of particular significance to this, and of great self interest. It is Eugen Herrigel's 'Zen in the Art of Archery'. Herrigel, a German philosopher, studied archery for five years of his life under Zen guidance, enabling him to write his essay. This practicing of 'spiritual archery' is to train the mind in order to bring it into contact with 'ultimate reality'. Archery is not practiced here solely for the hitting of a target.
Eugen Herrigel's Zen in the Art of Archery
D.T.Suzuki's summary of Herrigel's is as follows: "Zen is the 'Everyday Mind', this everyday mind is no more than sleeping when tired, eating when hungry. As soon as we reflect, deliberate and conceptualize the original consciousness is lost and a thought interferes. We no longer eat while eating, we no longer sleep while sleeping. The arrow is off the string but does not fly straight to the target, nor does the target stand where it is. Calculation, which is miscalculation, sets in. The whole business of archery goes the wrong way. The archer's confused mind betrays itself in every direction and every field of activity. Man is a thinking reed, but his great works are done when he is not calculating and thinking. 'Childlikeness' has to be restored after long years of training in the art of self forgetfulness. When this is attained, man thinks yet he does not thinks He thinks like showers coming down from the sky; he thinks like waves rolling on the ocean; he thinks like stars illuminating the mighty heavens; he thinks like the green foliage shooting forth into the Spring breeze. Indeed, he is the showers, the ocean, the stars, the foliage. When a man reaches this stage of 'spiritual' development, he is a Zen artist of life. He does not need, like the painter, a canvas, brushes and paints; nor does he require, like the archer, the bow and arrow, and target and other paraphernalia...........".
Cartier Bresson's whole body has thousands of antennae alert within him; he will know that which will enable him to hit the target after closing his eyes. The target the archer hits is indirectly himself, or the road to spiritual deliverance. The archer, his bow, ego and target all melt into one, creating a state of selflessness. He contains no cumbersome thoughts at this moment of perception, and has in him the immediacy of natural life, Bresson Bakes many connections with this 'spiritual'state of archery; his intuition, serene rapidity, the peace drawn from ceaseless tension are all gifts close to the spiritual readiness of a Zen monk. He has an amazing oneness with man and nature, and is in a state of spiritual awareness. Everything for him has an equivalence to everything else. He is the brother of all, showing a great kinship towards people.
