Henri Cartier-Bresson passes away
- Thread starter Jed
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glennyong said:
To my understanding, HCB never develop or printed any of his rolls of B/W. In fact,most of his exposures were mostly under the editors had to try all means to savage the negative in the darkroom. I would say a lot of his credit also must go to his darkroom assistants.
Hi
actually I don't see his death as a sad event or a tragedy, but more of a natural course of event. At an age of 95, with such a photographic and artistic (he was a painter, and after he gave up photography in the 70s, went back to painting, his first love) legacy, i'll say he led a most fulfilling creative life, something that we can all aspire to!
As for the concept of the decisive moment, he was indeed the first to crrystallise the idea and demonstrate it poignantly in his great pictures, but he did not coin the term. I know, love and study many of his photos (probably like many of us). However, I do feel his fame has ellipsed the accomplishments of other equally good photographers of / around his time, most notably Elliot Erwitt (one of my favourite photographer). In my personal opinion EE's pictures took the concept of the decisive moment to a whole new level. I did a count of my collection of photo books, and realised I have more of EE's stuff than HCB's.
That said however, i don't want to take anything away from HCB!
He was truly THE photographer, the mythical invisible photographer (not always true), dancing around in the streets with a Leica in hand (true), always and only with a 50mm lens (not true ), capturing life's fleeting moments with a single decisive click. (not really true either since if you look at the contact sheets, very often he shot and worked his way towards that moment)
actually I don't see his death as a sad event or a tragedy, but more of a natural course of event. At an age of 95, with such a photographic and artistic (he was a painter, and after he gave up photography in the 70s, went back to painting, his first love) legacy, i'll say he led a most fulfilling creative life, something that we can all aspire to!
As for the concept of the decisive moment, he was indeed the first to crrystallise the idea and demonstrate it poignantly in his great pictures, but he did not coin the term. I know, love and study many of his photos (probably like many of us). However, I do feel his fame has ellipsed the accomplishments of other equally good photographers of / around his time, most notably Elliot Erwitt (one of my favourite photographer). In my personal opinion EE's pictures took the concept of the decisive moment to a whole new level. I did a count of my collection of photo books, and realised I have more of EE's stuff than HCB's.
That said however, i don't want to take anything away from HCB!
He was truly THE photographer, the mythical invisible photographer (not always true), dancing around in the streets with a Leica in hand (true), always and only with a 50mm lens (not true ), capturing life's fleeting moments with a single decisive click. (not really true either since if you look at the contact sheets, very often he shot and worked his way towards that moment)- Status
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