Henri Cartier-Bresson

(image courtesy of www.studio188photography.com)

Cartier-Bresson photographs with an instantly recognizable style. Concerned with catching that moment in time (a point beautifully illustrated by his image displayed above by the pictured man's foot hovering just shy of dispersing his reflection in the water) his images are highly unique.

Cartier Bresson forever concerned himself with carefully considered compositions and shapes within the frame - I refer here to the strong vertical lines of the railings and their reflections in the water. There is tremendous symmetry within the image, something that has played a crucial part of elevating Cartier Bresson to a god like status (within the fields of photography)


Hyères, France, 1932. Gelatin silver print, (19.6 x 29.1 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
(image courtesy of copulastudio.com)

For Cartier Bresson to have achieved the image he wanted (which he did; as is displayed above) he would have had to wait, camera poised for godness knows how long waiting to capture the cyclist in just the right position. I imagine he would have stumbled across the composition and seen the beautiful shapes the twisting stair set creates; but I imagine he would have seen it has a rather stationary image, and the perfectly positioned cyclist suddenly makes the creation of this image and future attempted replicas all the more difficult to reproduce. It is the overriding sense of a unique moment in time captured that makes this image what it is.


Near Juvisy-sur-Orge, France. 1938. Gelatin silver print, printed 1947, (23.3 x 34.8 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York
(image courtesy of wayneford.posterous.com)

Cartier Bresson was wildly inventive for his time. It is his simple documentary style of which the above image is a perfect example of is a style photographers are still attempting to replicate to this day. This image is remarkably simple, but undeniable pure. The subjects' simplicity of pleasures is immediately reciprocated in Cartier Bresson's style. The image's composition is perfect, as is the image's exposure, and of course the printing is faultless.