Cartier-Bresson will never die.

I totally agree with Arond who said it much better than me.

HCB was the biggest influence on me becoming a photographer, perhaps many more skilled came before and after, but his whole approach, his philosophy( with one eye you look within and with the other you look out),etc. Before him photography was quasi static and he thought photogs should shoot fast /with responsiveness and when I read his book "the decisive moment", which was collecting dust in my grandads studio in which he explains his theory that the picture itself is the moment in which all falls into place motivated me in a big way and how the photog must work around that I based my approach on his theories, while I like pictures by many before and after, I believe that if photogs were somewhat mobile before him, what HCB did was create a system for mobility while spontaneous and was gifted enough to be able to put it into words for the rest of us.

When I understood his thoughts and then I saw the work I valued it more , and his geometric composition techniques were the standard for editorial photography for a long time.he had a comprehensive system , one which made sense .

 

To me he is that great because I find his whole approach to be very well rounded, his images were not the most spectacular , his pictures are not my favorite pictures and yet I don't know how to explain it , I believe that his emphasis of the actual moment when we shoot permitted me to find a perspective which I embraced and I am very grateful to him , and many others including Capa.

 

You are right I am full of admiration for him and after 30 years of shooting I'm still learning his lessons .

 

You are very right again in saying that I'm not objective in my comments but I became a photographer because I tend to be subjective and that keeps me motivated.

 

Not only did HCB share his philosophy and talent with us but because of him and Capa and others we now have better right to our images(Magnum), in all his contribution will never die at least for me, I can only speak for myself in my broken englishe!, peace.

Yep, you know you're a legend when the postcard companies start calling.

<<As for run on sentences, why the need to shoot people down over something so irrelevant? How about a little civility?>>>

 

It seemed to me that William was not so much eulogizing C-B as indulging himself, admiring his own language, and generally expressing more emotion than he was feeling. This is called sentimentality. It is mostly heard from the pulpit and the political platform, but it crops up on forums from time to time.

Maybe there is a place for sentimentality

in my Philosophy . this thread section is" Philosophy of Photography"?,, Randy is correct in a way as to me emotional idealism or sentimentality is at the heart of Photography and without it I would have never considered picking up a camera except to document events .

 

And yes I have always felt better about Photography because of HCB and much of the alleged sentimentality developed after I learned of his ideas,and I felt much better about myself after I posted this question because while it may be about how I feel I also explained why .

 

I posted this question hoping to get responses on how you all felt about HCB's philosophy of photography and hoping to hear how it has influenced you and to do so I shared "my Philosophical experience on the subject".

 

I am still interested in learning how you feel about "his Philosophy and specially your own"despite censorship which seems to crop up on forums from time to time.

 

And yes why shoot someone down on something so irrelevant as run on sentences when you can do so about the way they feel or their motives ?

 

I would expect that you would feel good about your own Philosophy and the thoughts those who have influenced you , and when you reply I expect an ammalgam of both and if you feel proud in identifying yourself with someone elses Ideology and that shows in what you state you are doing good by me, Happy labor day to all.

William, I've always seen C-B's photography as the opposite of sentimental, which is why I love it. Much of his great work was done in the 1950s, when so much photography was indeed sentimental.

 

It may be that your writing carries the style of expression of another language, and I mistook that for what, in English, is sentimentality. If I misunderstood you, I apoligize.

 

If you strongly admire Cartier-Bresson, we are in agreement, anyway.

apologize

The latest issue of "Photo" magazine is devoted entirely to the life and work of HCB. Besides containing a retrospective of his most famous images, the issue also contains a selection of shots made by others of HCB at work and at play. Unfortunately, all the text in the magazine is in French, leaving those of us who are only literate in English at somewhat at a disadvantage. But the pictures alone are worth the price of the magazine ($5.95).

Thanks Bill.Is it in US stores now or are you a subscriber? I had seen the announcement in the previous issue but as of last week I still couldn't find the new one.

I bought my copy of "Photo" magazine on Saturday in a "Border's Books" store located in a suburb of Washington DC.

I was very disappointed to recently read that Magnum photo which Bresson helped found, excluded photographers during the McCarthy years for fear of losing business..so much for freedom. While I currently think that Magnum is a fantastic agency, it is of importance that we all use checks and balances in our praise/judgement of others and that regardless of their skill and mastery, they too must be held accountable for what they have done..

John: I have to agree that that specific era was out of control , and I have to say that no one handled it well.

My dad was the founder of the film festival of Punta Del Este (Uruguay) and in order to organize the festivals he had to travel to Hollywood and hang out with the studio bosses and actors and as a result because he was seen hanging out " with the wrong crowd" he was subsequently denied a visa to travel to the USA for several years.

 

The injustice you speak of is very real yet at least we know that as photographers we now have more rights as a result of Magnum"s creation.

 

I have no idea If he was involved in such a decision and if there was any choice considering that a news photography agency cant afford to be shut off entirely and the reprisals at that time were quite drastic.

 

I agree it was unjust but to know if HCB had anything to do with it would require having all the info before one could decide, and then one would have to know if he had a choice, most affected by that era never had any choice. .

 

And if one goes down that path I think that the world was mostly injustice at the time and at least he risked his life to walk into battlefields and conflict zones so that we could now think that we can do better.

 

The role of a journalistic photographer is to protest with his images, ( he did) and if he were shut down himself the message would have been lost.

 

Many times it is less effective to insist you are offended than to

use your craft to portray what it really offensive, we don't know what really happened, at least I don't.

 

I recently saw a WW II movie about a priest who spent the entire war trying to convince the Pope and the American ambassador to the Vatican to do something about the Jews being exterminated and they kept telling him that first there was no genocide and then that the liberation of Europe should come first. That sounds unjust, It is easy to look back and say you would have done things differently but nobody did . I admire his philosophy of photography and the rest I'm not really informed as to make any judgments.

I remember that Pope, coming from an Extremely Dutch Catholic Family, and yes, being a choir boy.. (I'm not Catholic anymore)he also didn't want non-white American Soldiers in St. Peters. You might this link interesting. http://www.temple.edu/photo/photographers/gisele/gisele.htm

The current Pope has done a lot of good and I think Catholicism is a great religion and America a great nation and the only reason I brought up the WW II example was to say If they couldn't do more sooner with all the clout they had and one could also say they were the ones who helped the most even if it wasn't enough all I'm saying is that in such extreme situations and times which are basically irrational it would be unfair to blame those who did the most when the rest sat back and did little or nothing at all beyond isolated incidents, lets not be so hard on a photojournalist when the truth is there were thousands of photojournalists in WW II and in the Mc Carthy era not only HCB or Magnum yet both situations went on for a long time and I haven't read too many stories of boycotts by photojournalists in either case .

 

Thanks for the link , as you can see that lady photographer spent most of her career fleeing one injustice or another and she was also a Magnum Photographer,I suspect that in many cases photojournalists could do little more than hope to do their assignments and get back home in one piece.

 

That article states clearly that it was Robert Capa and not HCB who fired her and I had seen a pbs documentary earlier this year who narrated Capa's life and I believe they said that since the original bunch was great at taking pictures but that they often clashed on how to run the agency and to how make it profitable,I think they all just wanted to get back to taking picture rather than deal with bureaucracies .In any event I am not disappointed because I had the chance to meet many of the greats of that generation who helped me understand how things worked at the time .

 

lets not forget that Capa landed on one of the first boats on D day under the heaviest artillery and while everyone else who was there might have suffered I believe because he always jumped right in in front of the heaviest fire perhaps that took a toll by the end of the war, if he is considered as the greatest war photographer I suspect the guy had to face more than his share....those guys were not your average pencil pusher.

 

I read in that article that you pointed out, they say she spent time in Argentina and photographed Eva Peron one could say this is a small world after all, my grandfather also photographed her and I have been trying to recover the images from my cousin. all I have here is a portrait that he shot of my parents at the Buenos Aires airport at their return from one of those trips I had mentioned earlier. I wonder if my grandfather met Gisele ?

John: perhaps you were unaware that Capa had also lost his American passport when an ex girlfriend accused him of being a communist the previous year and was quite depressed and almost shut down If I remember correctly from the PBS documentary , anyway here is a link that explains further

 

http://photography.about.com/library/weekly/aa041700c.htm

In any event HCB had nothing to do with Gisele's dismissal and I dont think Capa had a choice.

Mr. Angel I found a smaller article / Homage to HCB on the new issue of American Photo last night and also received the October issue of the French edition but no article there, is the one you mentioned September issue?

 

Anyway after 2.5 months we've talked about everything except his philosophy of photography so I will try to give a practical example of how it applies to the images yet I see It as being separate from the actual product even if it affects the results.

 

On the photo posted here by James O'Neill we can see that HCB uses tech skills to highlight spontaneity rather than what was considered skillful at that time ( standard composition always came first).

A) he chooses to crop out the boys feet in order to give the image more depth which would be lost in a 35mm format ( second car and the roofs at the rear) in those days people would have probably halted the boy and told him to wait and walked a few steps back to recompose but never crop like that.

 

B) You will also notice that the closer the secondary subjects are to the boy ( main subject) the more engaged they are sharing his emotion and vice versa, the bokeh also highlights the same.

 

C) the trajectory of the 2 girls is perpendicular to the trajectory of the boy which is highly effective and the synergy of it all appears to be facilitated by HCB approach to taking the picture because you can see that none of the subjects appear threatened or disrupted by the photographer and rather willing to allow him to share the moment.

 

One can argue that he got lucky and that none of what I point out is his doing yet when examining the bulk of his work what I mention is present in every image despite the fact

that the subject is different so it isn't really a casual result but a calculated one and a photo op is an opportunity and nobody cares how or why they just examine what you obtained but if you step back and read what was posted by others earlier you can tell that no one cares why someone else took a picture but expect us to care why " they" take their pictures and then accuse of sentimentality if we care why too much for a particular approach and I say that if they confront why it is that they are motivated to taking pictures themselves the work will improve and they will be less threatened as to why we value the work of others for reasons that appear irrational.

 

The human experience can hardly be considered to be entirely rational , we see that all good has a flip side, and we should be able to get over that already and in journalistic photography should one " sanitize humanity out of the picture in order to make the world saner" photojournalism = art imitates life, and to some life got to be "too liberal" so they choose to sanitize it out of their pictures in the hopes that life will then imitate art and that the world will then be a little more Norman Rockwell. but as we have agreed that everything has a flip side when you repress valid emotion you get something else and in photography that would be pornography, and the message is that if you wont value humanity for its emotion all you have left is materialism , the dark ages claimed spirituality

but repressed it and emotions and that led to the pornographic " renaissance" and then that was repressed in turn the point is synergy and balance is the only thing that works and if photography may be a single instant it cant be approached as if a" run off" sentence and then hope it will motivate others or ourselves.

 

In HCB's work skills and tech used is all placed at the service of highlighting the ( emotion ) " sentimentality" which is experienced by the boy which appears to be the absolute center of the photograph( and main point of interest) and in my opinion if you take that away the picture is worthless.

 

If you take that away all you can find is technical mistakes but when you look at the boys smile which showcases his pride and emotion that is all you can notice.

 

Those who prefer a different kind of photography can easily find the tech mistakes and those who prefer journalistic photography ( reportage style)are thrilled with the philosophy of placing all tech rules at the service of highlighting spontaneity .

 

The trophy here is the sentimentality and perhaps not the clich頴ouchy feely sentimentality of the period but a more subtle one, that in what refers to the actual photograph and there is a second level of sentimentality which is his philosophy of photography which speaks of his role in taking the photograph beyond the actual picture itself, when I tried his theories it didn't feel like photography but more like playing pool and by getting comfortable his pictures look like he said " eight ball corner pocket" and got the shot effortlessly and that is the admirable grace that in my opinion translated into his images which motivated me to speak metaphorically when I posted the original question.

 

It took me more than a month to reply to the sentimentality issue which was brought up but after I considered it I don't think anyone who takes pictures of subjects which have a breath does so for any other reason than sentimentality unless it is a commercial portrait I.E. (for an annual report for some corporation), in which case it is toned down to convey the illusion of " professionalism of a subject yet we all know it is deliberate and false, sentimentality is there ( hidden). Photography can be approached as if it was Monday night football and I suppose we can all remember the 1980's posters of naked girls using their bodies and a couple of wheels to emulate motorcycles yet you wont find that in any museum or art gallery , the perfectly lit and sharp images in product catalogs in the Sunday paper go in the garbage the next day, so what are tech skills? My take is that they are the summation of variables required to communicate what you wish.

 

Phototechnique is essential in a visual medium because without it you fail to communicate entirely but by itself as in the example of the catalog images it is worth very little.

 

Equipment is also valuable to a degree in order to implement the phototechnique effectively. but the glue that makes it all worth it to you is why you take pictures ( philosophy of photography) and what you wish to say in one instance ( photograph) they are not the same thing and to have any kind of philosophy of photography one must recognize that a certain sentimentality exists or one can choose to hide in conversations about tech and equipment and the results will always be a gamble because no one really cares if the picture is well lit because 50 billion pictures ( perfectly lit )already exist and wont win any awards nor your approval either beyond the initial surprise, yet gambling can also be fun and there is nothing wrong with that in itself can be a philosophy of photography ( to just press the trigger and wait to be surprised by the results.

 

I enjoyed that at first but when editors told me I had to develop a style of my own ( identity)I found HCB idea of turning photography into a sport rather than a gamble to be a very practical and unpretentious / effective way to have a starting point and it worked for me, I have yet to find any other method which shows me how to develop my own style I honestly don't think it exists.

 

With yet another one of my infamous run on sentences I have laid out the subject of the discussion and disagreement is both healthy and expected we have already agreed that

he might not qualify for canonization and that he might not have been perfect , I would like to learn something new and in a few weeks when we are less distracted by politics perhaps we can start again with a clean slate.

 

Thanks

 

Last week I had a chance to see a nice table top book titled"NEW YORKERS" as seen by Magnum Photographers, a few images by HCB and Capa but also most other Magnum shooters, its worth seeing and I also noticed a photograph in the book about an immigrant being photographed swearing under oath that he was not a communist,and when looking at the whole book one cant help notice that the past was quite tumultuous and unglued in general, the book covers the first days of magnum up to 911. I think the Mc Carthy era was well documented by many .I don't know if the book is available everywhere but your local library might have a copy of it.

 

In any event perhaps John was somewhat influenced by the fact that history seems to repeat itself and we now find ourselves at a time when safety is a concern and so much appears to be unfair .

I was in Ny in 911 and after 4 years some of us are beginning to be able to finally confront the magnitude of what happened , many like myself had to repress a lot of it in order to not be totally defeated by it and we came out stronger,we survived big time and we will prevail.