Though in my own picture taking I’m usually more interested in depicting the traces people leave rather than the people themselves, I’ve loved the people-focused work of Cartier Bresson since discovering it in my 20s. Here’s a thoughtful article, Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Last Decisive Moment in American Suburb X, by Bruno Chalifour, an article I’ve just come across. As Chalifour says, for Henri Cartier-Bresson:
from a simple way of seeing, photography became a way of thinking, feeling (with the appropriate distance), and a way of life, an evolution that would be confirmed by, and would extend into his experience of Buddhism.
Bruno sees that it was Henri Cartier-Bresson’s vision that made small-camera photography what it is today; how for many of us the framed space is still in some way sacrosanct, not to be cropped nor manipulated if at all possible, even in the digital age with its assumed freedoms in image production. This is certainly a tenet that is alive for me in my picture taking.
And although for me I’m interested in the gestalt, the whole movement of the photographer towards the “taking” moment and subsequently away from it (hence my related vispoetic texts sometimes say “episode”, “affair”, “tale” etc), this is not at variance with the true meaning of “decisive moment”: rather than freezing a dimensionless moment, Cartier-Bresson’s images:
…succeed in stretching time beyond its known limits. They scratch the thin surface of things upon which most eyes make daily ricochets, missing the point (… of entry, the decisive location).
Entry points towards depth! Chalifour expresses it well.
Postscript: American Suburb X also has a nice Gallery of Cartier-Bresson images.
