Henri Cartier-Bresson Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• A photograph is neither taken or seized by force. It offers itself up. It is the photo that takes you. One must not take photos.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Photography, Taken, Photographer

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• And no photographs taken with the aid of flashlight either, if only out of respect of the actual light—even when there isn't any of it.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Photography, Taken, Light

  "The Mind's Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers".

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• ...it is seldom indeed that a composition which was poor when the picture was taken can be improved by reshaping it in the dark room.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Photography, Taken, Dark

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• Time runs and flows and only our death succeeds in catching up with it. Photography is a blade which, in eternity, impales the dazzling moment.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Photography, Running, Flow

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• All I care about these days is painting — photography has never been more than a way into painting, a sort of instant drawing.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Photography, Drawing, Care

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• Pictures should never be posed. They are 'revealed' so must be accepted as they are. Left alone.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Photography, Accepted, Should

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• It is by great economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Mean, Expression, Simplicity

  Henri Cartier-Bresson, Michael L. Sand (1999). “The Mind's Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers”

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• Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Photography, Eye, Essence

  Peter Galassi, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.) (1987). “Henri Cartier-Bresson, the early work”

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• It seems dangerous to be a portrait artist who does commissions for clients because everyone wants to be flattered, so they pose in such a way that there's nothing left of truth.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Photography, Artist, Portraits

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• I enjoy very much seeing a good photographer working. There’s an elegance, just like in a bullfight.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Photographer, Elegance, Enjoy

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• The intensive use of photographs by mass media lays ever fresh responsibilities upon the photographer. We have to acknowledge the existence of a chasm between the economic needs of our consumer society and the requirements of those who bear witness to this epoch. This affects us all, particularly the younger generations of photographers. We must take greater care than ever not to allow ourselves to be separated from the real world and from humanity.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Photography, Real, Responsibility

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• We must respect the atmosphere which surrounds the human being

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Atmosphere, Humans, Surround

  Henri Cartier-Bresson, Michael L. Sand (1999). “The Mind's Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers”

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• With the one eye that is closed, one looks within, with the other eye that is open, one looks without.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Eye, Looks

  "Henri Cartier-Bresson Dies at 95" by the Associated Press, www.foxnews.com. August 4, 2004.

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• In photography, the smallest thing can become a big subject, an insignificant human detail can become a leitmotiv. We see and we make seen as a witness to the world around us; the event, in its natural activity, generates an organic rhythm of forms.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Photography, Events, Details

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• Photography must seize upon this moment and hold immobile the equilibrium of it. The photographers eye is perpetually evaluating. A photographer can bring coincidence of line simply by moving his head a fraction of a millimeter. He can modify perspectives by a slight bending of the knees. By placing the camera closer to or farther from the subject, he draws a detail — and it can be subordinated, or he can be tyrannized by it.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Moving, Eye, Perspective

  "The Mind's Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers".

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• Rene Char wrote somewhere, apropos poetry, that there are those who create and those who discover; they are too completely different worlds. Photograph also has two sides to it and thank goodness, I am only intersted in those who discover; I feel a certain solidarity with those who set out in a spirit of discovery; I think there is much more risk invovled in this than in trying to create images; and in the end, reality is more important.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Reality, Thinking, Discovery

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• I adore shooting photographs. It's like being a hunter. But some hunters are vegetarians - which is my
  relationship to photography.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Photography, Shooting, Hunters

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• The simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression... In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little human detail can become a leitmotif.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Photography, Organization, Expression

  "Cartier-Bresson's classic is back - but his Decisive Moment has passed" by Sean O'Hagan, www.theguardian.com. December 23, 2014.

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• The photograph itself doesn't interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Photography, Reality, Want

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• Why do photographers start giving numbers to their prints? It’s absurd. What do you do when the 20th print has been done? Do you swallow the negative? Do you shoot yourself? It’s the gimmick of money.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Numbers, Giving, Negative

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• Thinking should be done before and after, not during photographing. Success depends on the extent of one's general culture. one's set of values, one's clarity of mind one's vivacity. The thing to be feared most is the artificially contrived, the contrary to life.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Thinking, Mind, Before And After

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• In every photographer there is something of a stroller.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Photographer, Strollers

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• The adventurer in me felt obliged to testify with a quicker instrument than a brush to the scars of the world.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  World, Scar, Brushes

  Peter Galassi, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.) (1987). “Henri Cartier-Bresson, the early work”

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• Some photographs are like a Chekhov short story or a Maupassant story. They're quick things and there's a whole world in them. But one is unconscious of it while shooting.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Photography, Stories, Shooting

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• Photography appears to be an easy activity; in fact it is a varied and ambiguous process in which the only common denominator among its practitioners is in the instrument.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Photography, Facts, Common

  Henri Cartier-Bresson, Michael L. Sand (1999). “The Mind's Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers”

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