HCB. Please, explain...

A couple months ago I went to a Henri-Cartier Bresson's exibition

here in Japan. A beautiful collection of some 120 photos originally

printed and signed by himself, one by one.

 

At a section with portraits, two of his photographs (the one of

Alfred Stieglitz and the one of Jean-Paul Sartre) called my attention

so strongly that I spent almost one hour looking just at them.

However, I can't explain exactly why. So, my questions are:

 

1- If you've had similar experience and felt the same way, tell me

your personal opinions why these photos (as examples) are so

compelling as photographs. I just want to understand it better so I

can improve myself.

 

2- In your oinion, is there any better way to express so much than in

a original, hand made black & white print such as those?

 

3- All photographs in that collection where full frame prints, with

those black edges showing. Do some people still give value to that?

 

Thank you and excuse my poor english.

do you think you would have stared so long had the portraits been taken by some un known photographer?

Maybe no. When people tell you you're looking to a geniu's work, you pay attention in hope to discover his genius yoursefl, I guess. But the question remains.

but maybe you should decide for yourself whether he is a genius and not let others tell you so.

A local gallery here has the HCB "puddle jumper" photo on display. I've been back several times to stare at it. I think it is like seeing a movie star in after only seeing them in films.

Thousands of Intelectuals and top photographers can't be all that wrong. I myself can "see" much more from his photos than I used to before. So I want to hear more opinions from folks who have developed a more critical and sensitive eye.

I meant to say "in person"

Well for me, I was already a fan of HCB before I saw any of his work in person (meaning prints vs books). When I unexpectedly ran across a number of my favorite images handing in a gallery, I was astounded.

 

Not so much by the images themselves, I already had made up my mind about liking or disliking them. But rather about how much more powerful they were printed, as opposed to being reproduced in a book or magazine. I must have spent an hour looking at those photos. And I normally have a very short attention span.

Josh, that's what I meant.

Ricardo, there are some photographs that I return to again and again...in each case for a different reason. For some years now, my favorite HCB photo has been his shot titled simply "Hyeres" -- the shot with a spiral staircase in the foreground and a bicyclist riding in a curved street in the background.

 

I keep returning to this image because, to me, it demonstrates many attributes that are seldom found together in one photograph:

 

1. As a photograph, it is literally two-dimensional, yet the perspective from the top of the spiral staircase gives the illusion of three-dimensionality.

 

2. As a still picture, it is literally static, yet the slight blur of the cyclist gives the illusion of motion.

 

3. It is a uniqe moment -- perhaps a fifteenth of a second in the early 1930s -- yet, in another sense, it is timeless. It is a picture that could have been taken at any time in the last hundred years or more. Nothing in the frame dates it precisely.

 

4. Technically, it is adequate...and by using the word "adequate," I don't mean to damn it with faint praise. Rather, I mean that it is as sharp as it has to be, as well-exposed as it has to be. If it were sharper, or had strikingly richer tones, I don't think it would be any better and might somehow seem less authentic.

 

I have seen this picture reproduced in books and on the web, as well as in a gallery exhibtion. But I really came to appreciate it fully when I had the chance to study a fine print of it on the wall of an acquaintance's apartment.

 

For me, this particular image represents what I like in a photograph and what I try, with limited success, to put into my photographs.

<i>Thousands of Intelectuals and top photographers can't be all that wrong.</i><br><br>Sure intellectuals can be wrong (and photogs for that matter), even lots of them. Remember a few hundred years ago we thought the earth was flat because thousands believed it to be so. Mass approval doesn't mean something's right or good.

And to continue with Dominic's thought...has anyone wondered that perhaps if a camera and traveling was common and accessible by everyone 80 years ago, or during his era, that we wouldn't be looking at these images the way we do? Essentially, most of them are just a rich guys images that he didn't even print. If it was a level playing field then, like it is now, would HCB be so highly regarded? If he was shooting today, would he merely be uploading to PN during his lunch break unnoticed?

I'd really like to know the opinion of those who had a experience similar to mine and felt like I personally felt. That is my goal with this post. I do respect those who question HCB, but that is not the question. However, it's good to have extra comments anyway.

sorry Ricardo, you're right, my post could have hijacked your quest.

JONATHAN, can you give me your acquaintance's apartment address?? In case they want to change their fine print for my fine poster...

Cameras and travel are widely available now and we don't see such work as HCB's.

 

What I admire most about him is his dedication: can you imagine how many pictures he

must have taken in order to yield so many published and/or show-worthy pictures?

 

And all this with very few pictures of famous people--I'd like to do an experiment: set up

a camera and lights in a studio and photograph 100 people, some of them famous, and

then make the photos available for critique--or gimmicks to make the photo noteworthy

for its subject alone.

 

No, he has lovely pictures of two people crossing a street, of people sitting in chairs, of all

kinds of commonplace subjects: but his photos are good. I see lots of people firing away

with all kinds of cameras when I travel, but they don't have "it" and neither do I.

 

But he had "it" in spades when it came to photography.

Does anyone know if Magnum is rewriting history. I have catalogs and

photo books that show Henri's famous image of a man jumping over the

puddle without a full-frame black border. Recently, I have been

seeing this image with a Magnum copyright and a full-frame black

border. The image does not show as much as the catalog image - looks

cropped on the left and right. Are Magnum adding a black border

electronically?

Will, I think that regardless the conditions that he had (his personal conections, his time being very different from our time, his opportunities, etc...) he has achieved something that is unique. I've seen some great work here in PN, I've seen Sebastiao Salgado's work and even met him, Magnum galleries, etc and I see very few ones did what HCB did in the way he did it. Not that he was better or worse than others. And is nice to hear how different people describe his uniqueness.

answer above was to Will Woodford

I cannot comment on Henri Cartier Brsson because I have never seen his actual work. (I have a Bresson book, that is all)

 

I did go to London earlier this year to see the Bill Brandt exhibition at the Victoria & Albert museum. (Bill Brandt is one of my photographic heroes) 150 hand made prints, printed by Brandt himself. Despite already liking his work and having many books of his photographs there was no substitute for seeing the man's own work from just inches away.

 

Those prints had a definite 'grip' that no book print can ever reproduce. They have a way of making the people depicted, live people and the landscapes, live landscapes (even though the people and the landscapes from his earlier work are long gone)

 

No PHD thesis or intellectualised book 'blurb' (that so often 'inflicts' itself in photographer's books without invitation from the reader) can ever substitute for eyeballing the real thing.

 

Sorry to sound almost 'spiritual' about it.

 

It is like the difference between watching an interview of someone you admire or talking to them yourself. The interviewer may ask better questions but there is no substitute for being able to talk one to one (even when you may not be able to articulate questions as well as the "Intellectual Introduction" guy you find 'explaining' all your photography books to you. (I skip them and go to the pictures like when I was kid!)

 

Yes Ricardo, I can imagine what you felt because it would be the same with me and Bill Brandt.

Thank you Trevor and take your time to really enjoy and learn from it.

Well,

(a) on one level, HCB was very precise geometrically: shapes and lines that make the picture are strongly related or regular, however not primitive like today's advertising shots, so one has to follow them and stare for while.<br>

However there is more to that: if geometric drawing itself (first part of composition) and its position inside the frame (second part of composition) are precise - i.e. create very strong regularities, our brains immediately and automatically perceive the image as "special" or "beautiful".

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(b) Second level of HCB's appeal is above the level of geometry. It's playing with the meaning in some cases, repetitions, contrasts etc.

His shots are not empty of meaning in the way an average tourists' are. A tourist is shooting some place to say "I've been here", which is functionally similar to a dog raising its leg at a tree.

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HCB, however, made shots about something, and it's the combination of precise geometry (signalling: It's Special!) and the content or meaning (what this special picture is about) that creates the magic.

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His Hyeres frame with the spiral staircase and the byciclist works because the cyclist is precisely where a drop of water following the spiral lines and flying off would be. The "meaning" of the shot is in that special unity between the staircases and the moving dot.

<br><a href=http://www.photology.com/bresson/Foto21.htm> SEE PHOTO HERE</a>

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His portraits however work on another level: Giacometti, for example is seen stepping forward in such a way that he makes himself similar to one of G's statues. This is logical substitution - a statue can be like a man, but on the shot it is the live man that becomes like an inanimate statue he himself created. Therefore the mind is moved to thinking about how (for example) artist not only creates something similar to himself, but vice versa, how he himself can become like his own creation.

<br><a href=http://www.magnumphotos.com/c/htm/CDocZ_MAG.aspx?Stat=DocThumb_DocZoom&o=&DT=ALB&E=2TYRYDZAJK8T&Pass=&Total=593&Pic=238&SubE=2S5RYD1CQDVZ>SEE PHOTO HERE</a>

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The genius of HCB is that his image "start" such thinking from structural visual elements. He himself believed that visual is a form of thinking

It also helps to have a good printer. You can do alot in a darkroom to make a really good photo into a great one. A good example of that was in the doc film War Photographer that shows Nachtwey(sp?) communicating with his printer. I know from my own work. If I'm willing to spend some hours in the darkroom I can get the contrast and the high and low key points where I want them to subtley manipulate the viewer's eye and his first gut reaction.

Ricardo, thanks for sharing your experience. I had a similar situation. Several years ago, the Cleveland Museum of Art had an exhibit of Edward Weston's prints. While I enjoyed the exhibit, the image which grabbed me was his famous Pepper. It has been one of my favorite images for many years. I have several representations of it in well printed books. However, the book printings are no match for the real print. I can't really describe the difference, but seeing an original print took my feelings to another level. It was the only print in the exhibit to do so.

 

The beauty of hand made prints? Over twenty years ago I gave a friend one of my prints. He liked the image enough to mount, mat and frame it. Seeing it on his wall was a very moving experience for me. Ever since then I have become a firm believer in the importance of a well crafted presentation for an image. A cleanly cut, well proportioned archival mat in a Nielsen frame will not make a mediocre image "art", however, a moving imge deserves the best possible presentation.

 

I occasionally print the black edge around one of my prints. I like the symbolism that the image is just as seen. I think adding the black border artificially is tacky.

 

I'm glad you enjoyed the HCB show. Your connection with the two images has deepened your visual feelings. That's a rare gift.

I saw the great HCB show at the Hayward in London a few years ago (HCB upstairs, Francis Bacon downstairs)and I agree with (most of)the positive comments about HCB. He quite obviously had a knack that few happy snappers enjoy... However the point about Hyeres, judged by the kind of criteria often applied to HCB's work, is that it is just spoilt by the fact that the cyclist's head touches the black line of the gutter. Or is it the flaw that makes the picture?...