Henri Cartier-Besson death

[matt_deviney]

I have nothing to say other than that we have lost a master that was so inherently gifted that it almost seems unfair that such a mind and pair of eyes can't live on forever, but while viewing his photographs one realizes that this is exactly what they are doing; His photographs are preserving the one-of-a-kind brilliance with which he saw our world and I feel blessed to have been shown what it looked like for him.

 

Thank you HCB

[Landrum Kelly]

I don't think that I've heard a single negative thing about HCB in all of the above, except for one attempt to dismiss him and Ansel Adams as both being irrelevant. The general consensus of praise speaks to the greatness of the man, such that no thinking person can deny his creativity and his impact.

 

The only point of significant dispute that I can recall is his claim that cropping "dilutes a photograph of its meaning." That one-line dogma ranks up there with Einstein's "God does not play dice with the universe," to which Neils Bohr famously responded, "Who is Einstein to tell God what he can do?"

 

Both one-liners are of philosophical significance, and reasoned discussion of them will not end anytime soon, and citing either master as the ultimate authority on the truth of his own dictum will not settle the argument, whatever it may be.

 

Fortunately, the greatness of both Cartier-Bresson and Einstein depends solely upon their own stupendous achievements, not on whether or not they were right about every single thing that they ever said. Recognition of greatness does not require idolatry.

 

I get an unreasoning backlash almost every time I offer a reasoned critique of Immanuel Kant. One would think that one had committed blasphemy for challenging one who has justifiably been called the "Great Sage of Koenigsberg." I like to remind those who know Kant superficially that he also defended the death penalty and what he called a "categorical imperative of retribution." Their jaws often drop: they have become instant experts on Kant, even though they have never read him carefully or fully. The famed Alfred North Whitehead, in like vein, once said that "All philosophy is a footnote to Plato." Karl Popper, on the other hand, placed Plato in the authoritarian tradition in his own very influential work. Both men were probably--and ironically--corrrect.

 

Reasonable persons do civilly disagree about some pretty significant claims about the masters. May it always be so. I like HCB's style and the photos that he produced while working within the discipline of his own self-imposed regimen. I also like the work of many others who have not imposed that particular limitation upon themselves. Vive la difference.

[eugenio.demmenie]

Also here in Holland, HC-B passing away was not unnoticed. Television did a rebroadcast of a documentary made in 2003. In the documentary HC-B showed modesty about his work, his love for painting/drawing.

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Also the <a href=?http://www.henricartierbresson.org/index_en.htm?>Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson</a> was mentioned. An institution, created by HC-B himself, his wife Martine Franck and their daughter Melanie, that is aimed at preserving his legacy and to stimulate (young) photographers by a biannual grant program.

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His photographs capture unique, dramatic, decisive moments in life. At the same time the composition in his photographs is exemplary. His work covered all aspects of man?s mortal life: from childhood, falling in love, elder age, till death.

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Many of these frozen moments in time, that are appreciated by so many, will live on for ever (or close to it).

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Among the many photographs by HC-B, that I like, is the picture taken at the Coronation of George VI in 1938. People had been posting all night before the event, in order to have the best place to see the spectacle. The picture shows a man lying on newspapers: he has fallen asleep. A crowd above him is looking at the event an their heads are not directed to camera (they look away from the photographer), only one boy looks directly at the photographer. It seems he is looking at us (perhaps not intentionally ? it does not matter). The picture is not about the pump and circumstance of the coronation, but about ordinary people and their frailty.

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Another one is the little boy, carrying two large bottles of wine. He smiles and is proud, to fulfil this delicate task. As one reviewer rightfully said it, it is as if this boy?s childhood is frozen in time. And so there are more unforgettable photographs by HC-B.

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The greatness of HC-B is perhaps that he has made so many photographs, that are so unique in capturing moments in life and show such great composition. In this HC-B was very special, more special then he wanted us to believe.

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HC-B passed away quietly at the respectable age of 95. And a feeling of gratefulness feels me more than sadness. Grateful for he has left us with so many great touching photographs.

[jameslomax]

Like everyone else, I found HCB's work a great inspiration and probably the greatest photographic collection in existence. On the matter of his old age grumpiness, painting etc. I disagree with some of these comments. I saw him interviewed, and I say you cannot generalise about someone's entire character from selective footage taken from probably many more hours of footage. The editor wanted to say something, but could equally have said something else. And he WAS an elderly man, probably no more grumpy than many others: it had nothing to do with his photography as such.

 

But there's more to it than that. I didn't think he had any desire to get noticed for his painting and was thus irritable and petulant. I found his self-deprecating attitude wonderfully refreshing, in a world when "artists" are some of the most ridiculous and pretentious people in existence. He insisted he wasn't an artist but just 'took pictures' - how wonderfully mature and humble, and how astute, wanting to avoid all the adulation and celebrity bullshit that goes with the word Artist. I felt he was saying 'leave me alone', ie I do not want to be subjected to this tiresome nonsense. If he dismissed his work and had moved on to painting, how wonderful that he was able to 'let go' of such a large amount of work, demonstrating that was on some kind of inner exploration and was not attached to whatever medium he happened to be using.

 

He didn't give the usual answers, or the expected answers, but how you interpret that is debateable. I interpret it positively, for the above reasons.

[yogesh_kshirsagar]

At which site can I see work of Henry?

[Spearhead]

Is google blocked on your machine?

[rod_yo]

What makes HCB was his unique eye for the human and sometimes banal moments that became his photographs. It was not that he photographed great events but he caught ordinary people dealing with life's challenges: leaping across puddles, a trip to get bread from the shop. There was an emotion in his best photographs which made us sympathise with the subject. What was so good about HCB was that he searched for these pictures of ordinary people. A lesser photographer would not have realised they were there to be found. It's not about technique: it's about vision.

[johncrosley]

My great thanks to Tony Dummett for his insightful obituary on the passing of HC-B.

 

I was in Paris the day of his passing being pickpocketed, then Eastward and only today learned of the passing, which explains the comment that appeared on a critique from Doug Hawkes in my portfolio "God Bless Henri Cartier-Bresson!" which he must have been sure I would have understood.

 

I worked at AP with a man named Jimmy White who worked in China with Cartier-Bresson, and who described HC-B as small, quiet--almost invisible as he went about his work, as he recounted one day in San Francisco where I was a new hire.

 

I didn't know who the heck HC-B was, and I was back from freelancing in Viet-Nam and busy taking "street photographs" -- only now being posted for the first time -- then went to see the giant traveling exhibition of Cartier-Bresson's at a huge San Francisco museum, and when I saw how far short my photograpy fell (and how prolific HC-B was) for the most part I gave up visions of greatness as a "street" photographer.

 

There was a whole museum full of images -- magnificent images -- and I had just a handful of maybe worthy images. (See HC-B's book The World of Henri Cartier-Bresson to get an idea of how huge the exhibion and how vast and globe-straddling his work was.) I would then sooner not have heard of HC-B, no matter how devoted an acolyte I am today, for having suffered so badly in the comparison. I turned toward writing and other pursuits. (Many thanks to Photo.net for helping revive my photographic juices).

Respectueusement

John

[johncrosley]

Not mentioned is one of my favorites -- perhaps one of the most humorous: one goose, in a flock of geese waddling down a French country path, the neck of the goose parallel to the horizon as he was 'looking' to the backside of another, possibly rival goose waddling with the flock, maybe to give his 'rival' a "goose" -- all perfectly composed.

 

HC-B was a great philosopher: It seems that in all the scurrying about and praise for his works and even his words in relation to his life and his work, few have realized how profound his expressed philosophy actually was, or how carefully enunciated.

 

John

[johncrosley]

Not mentioned is one of my favorites -- perhaps one of the most humorous: one goose, in a flock of geese waddling down a French country path, the neck of the goose parallel to the horizon as he was 'looking' to the backside of another, possibly rival goose waddling with the flock, maybe to give his 'rival' a "goose" -- all perfectly composed.

 

HC-B was a great philosopher: It seems that in all the scurrying about and praise for his works and even his words in relation to his life and his work, few have realized how profound his expressed philosophy actually was, or how carefully enunciated.

 

John

[jameslomax]

I agree that he was interested in a philosophical stance towards life; I think that's what makes his work especially interesting. First, you have a great image. Then, you ask yourself what was he trying to say and what was he feeling when he took that picture? And you find for example, he was interested in Buddhism.

 

That's why I liked the way he dismissed his work and refused to give the predictable answers when interviewed. I don't think you can understand that in terms of normal interview discourse - you have to place it in a more philosophical context.

[johncrosley]

<p>If I read Cartier-Bresson's unauthorizerd autobiography correctly (it is not in front of me) the claim was correct that C-B could not look throuh the viewfinder; it was blocked by a fence board.</p>

<p>However, he had been at the precise place the day before and seen the same scene, and he had staked out the scene. He had already preframed, prefocused and placed his camera in the correct place for the exposure, and when the man jumped, he was observing, just not through the viewfinder and he made his exposure, just at the magic moment.</p>

<p>Later in kino (later transformed into video), he suggests that exposure was some sort of 'magic' in which he wasn't looking 'though the viewfinder' without explaining that in fact he was 'looking' just not through the viewfinder, and he purposefully and apparently impishly does not account on how he had preplanned that exposure. He was burnishing his image as some sort of 'magician' or 'wizard' or photography on the one hand, and on the other, having a good jest on his gullible following. </p>

<p>;~))</p>

<p>The old boy was full of life, and his art was part of what he was willing to place into a mystery. He had sworn the man who wrote his biography to secrecy, which was broken (as the biographer explained), much as Cartier-Bresson broke many of life's rules and may have expected.</p>

<p>john</p>

<p>John (Crosley)</p>

<p>Dec. 2011</p>