“Photography
is not
documentary,
but
intuition,
a
poetic
experience.”
“It’s
drowning
yourself,
dissolving
yourself,
and then
sniff, sniff, sniff –
being
sensitive
to
coincidence.”
“You can’t
go looking
for it;
you can’t
want it,
or you
won’t
get it.”
“First
you must
lose
yourself.
Then
it
happens.”
~Henry Cartier Bresson
The Early Years.
One of the most groundbreaking advances in photography happened between two world wars with the introduction of hand-held cameras. Suddenly, a photographer could be on the move recording the ebb and flow of life as it happened.
These new cameras didn’t merely fix the motion of the subject; they also freed the photographer from virtually all constraints. One could now reinvent the life of the street as Surrealist theater making it more surprising, mysterious, and compelling than the eye perceived it.
With a camera in his hand and a few rolls of film in his pocket, Cartier-Bresson never needed to decide if he was working or if he was just living.
He was doing both.
He was a master,
celebrating action
by freezing it …
… transforming
the ordinary
into the exceptional.
Photos: Henry Cartier Bresson’s Early Years.
Featured: Hyères, France, Belgium, Paris, Marseille, Italy and Poland. 1931 – 1933
Filed under: Notable Aesthetes, Photography Tagged: exhibit, henricartier-bresson, henrycartier-bresson, MOMA, Photography, retrospective
