Henri Cartier Bresson Famous Photographer

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.