06:
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
HAMBURG, West Germany—Around the neck of a young man hangs a sign that reads, "I am looking for any kind of work," December 1952-January 1953. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
DESSAU, Germany—A transit camp, located between the American and Soviet zones, was organized for refugees, political prisoners, POWs, forced laborers, and displaced persons returning from the Eastern front of Germany after having been liberated by the Soviet army. A Belgian woman and former Gestapo informer, being identified as she tried to hide in the crowd, April 1945. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
MUNICH, West Germany—Oktoberfest, 1961. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
MUNICH, West Germany—Oktoberfest, 1961. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
MUNICH, West Germany—Oktoberfest, 1961. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
MUNICH, West Germany—Oktoberfest, 1961. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
HAMBURG, West Germany—December 1952-January 1953. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
24:
Once, Henri [Cartier-Bresson] rang me in Paris and said, ‘Josef, [André] Kertész is in town, you must come to dinner and meet him.’ I said, ‘Henri, I love his pictures but I do not need to meet him.’ ‘No, you do not understand, you have to meet him because we three, we are of the same family.’ At the time, this seems to me to be an unbelievable thing to say. Now, though, when I look back from a distance, I can see that maybe there is something in that.
-Josef Koudelka
Stairs of Montmartre, Paris 1925, André Kertész
PRAGUE, Czechoslovakia—1992. © Josef Koudelka / Magnum Photos
Hyères, France, 1932 © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
28:
To photograph is to hold one’s breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It’s at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.
-Henri Cartier-Bresson
MULHOUSE, ALSACE, France—The Tour de France, 1969. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
FRANCE—Sunday on the banks of the River Marne, 1938. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
FRANCE—Painter Leonor Fini, 1932. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
DIEPPE, France—Normandy, 1926. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
JOINVILLE-LE-PONT, France—A newlywed couple at an outdoor cafe in the Vallée de la Marne, 1938. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
ARLES, France—1959. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
CANNES, France—Jacques Tati and Alain Bercourt walk toward the Hotel Carlton, which bears a poster for Tati’s Mon Oncle, playing at the Cannes Film Festival, 1958. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
AVIGNON, VAUCLUSE, France—1969. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
ÎLE DE FRANCE, France—Along the Marne River, 1936. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
OISE, France—1960. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
DORDOGNE, France—Le Bugue, 1956. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
FRANCE—A Champagne vineyard, Marne, 1960. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
BOUGIVAL, France—1956. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
01:
PRAGUE—New Years' Eve, 2005. © Josef Koudelka / Magnum Photos
G.B. ENGLAND. London. Trafalgar Square. 01/01/2000. © Chris Steele-Perkins / Magnum Photos
NEW YORK—The Bowery, 1947. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
PARIS—La Villette, 1929. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
29:
Since his is fundamentally a tragic vision, he reacted most feelingly to what in America he saw as related to its decay, its pain.
-Arthur Miller, writing of the photographs that Cartier-Bresson took in America.
CHICAGO—The employment office, 1947.
NEW ORLEANS—1947. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
NEW YORK CITY—On the Lower East Side, 1947. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
NEW YORK CITY—1947. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
CAPE COD, Mass.—Independence Day, 1947. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
CAPE COD, Mass.—“This woman explained to me that the flagpole over her door was broken, but ‘on such a day as this, one keeps one’s flag on one’s heart.’ I felt in her a touch of the strength and robustness of the early American pioneers.”—Henri Cartier-Bresson, Independence Day, 1947. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
MASSACHUSETTS—Watching fireworks on July 4, 1947. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
NEW YORK—Coney Island, 1946. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
LOS ANGELES—1960. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
NEW MEXICO—At the Lama Foundation community, a father and two children pass in front of the kitchen, a stoutly built octagonal wood and glass structure (geodesic dome) with all the things a kitchen should have, plus a dining room above, 1971. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
NEW YORK CITY—Easter Sunday in Harlem, 1947. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
KNOXVILLE, Tenn.—1947. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
WASHINGTON, D.C.—At the Lincoln Memorial, a Pilgrimage for Freedom prayer session features singer Mahalia Jackson, 1957. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
MICHIGAN—Football at Ann Arbor University, 1960. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
ANN ARBOR, Mich.—A Michigan vs. Northwestern football game, Oct. 15, 1960. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
NEW YORK CITY—1959. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
New York, 1947, Henri Cartier-Bresson © Magnum Photos
25:
VENICE—Ezra Pound, 1971 Henri Cartier-Bresson © Magnum Photos
Martine Franck, Cartier-Bresson’s widow, accompanied her husband to just one — probably atypical — portrait session, that of the poet Ezra Pound in Venice in 1971, a year before his death at 87.
There was a tremendous, heavy silence,’ recalled Ms. Franck, herself a photographer. ‘Pound didn’t say a word. He just seemed to condemn the world with his eyes. We were there for about 20 minutes. I stayed to one side. I huddled in a corner. Henri took seven pictures.’
- From This Decisive Moment On by Alan Riding in The New York Times, January 26, 2006
14:
Magnum Photos has been releasing some images online from their singular historic archives which is an incredible opportunity to study and learn from the masters in their catalog. These images by Henri Cartier-Bresson, some of which have not been widely published, provide a rich insight into his style and process.
BERLIN—Taxi drivers, 1931, Henri Cartier-Bresson © Magnum Photos
I am in awe of him, I am in absolute awe of him. Everyone is a Cartier-Bresson baby…I worship him.
-Richard Avedon.
PARIS—Bofinger restaurant, 1969. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
Nothing worth knowing can be taught.
-Henri Cartier-Bresson
ACAPULCO, Mexico—A market, 1963. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
You mustn’t want, you must be receptive. Don’t think even. The brain’s a bit dangerous.
-Henri Cartier-Bresson
PARIS—Café Flore, 1959. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
I don’t consider myself a photographer, I am using a camera, but there are millions of photographers….I’m just a human being. Anyone that is sensitive is an artist.
-Henri Cartier-Bresson
NEW YORK CITY—A football game at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, 1947. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
Photography is nothing–it’s life that interests me.
- Henri Cartier-Bresson
NEW YORK CITY—Downtown, 1947. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
They . . . asked me:
‘How do you make your pictures?’ I was puzzled . . .
I said, ‘I don’t know, it’s not important.’
-Henri Cartier-Bresson
VILLAGE OF BRANGUES, France—French writer and diplomat Paul Claudel, 1945. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
In a portrait, I’m looking for the silence in somebody.
-Henri Cartier-Bresson
AHMEDABAD, GUJARAT, India—The Rangwala retail and wholesale cloth market, 1966. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
Actually, I’m not all that interested in the subject of photography. Once the picture is in the box, I’m not all that interested in what happens next. Hunters, after all, aren’t cooks.
-Henri Cartier-Bresson
NAPLES, Italy—1960. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
And no photographs taken with the aid of flash light, either, if only out of respect for the actual light – even when there isn’t any of it.
-Henri Cartier-Bresson – “The Decisive Moment”
ELEUSIS, Greece—1953. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
There is no closed figure in nature. Every shape participates with another. No one thing is independent of another, and one thing rhymes with another, and light gives them shape.
-Henri Cartier-Bresson
05:
September 22, 2009 through January 3, 2010, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will be hosting the exhibit, Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans. Organized by the National Gallery of Art, the exhibit has traveled from DC to San Francisco, ending in New York. The new exhibit and book are a celebration of the 50th anniversary of The Americans, one of the most influential single series of photographs ever published. The exhibit will feature all 83 photos from the book that were made on his cross-country road trip from 1955-56.
On Friday, October 9th, Robert Frank will be appearing in conversation with the curators and organizers of this presentation at the Met. Do not miss this, as Frank does not make many public appearances these days. Purchase tickets here. I already have mine and am sure it will sell out soon.
Whether you attend or not, purchase the book right now. The expanded hardcover features 83 pages of contact sheets which are a treasure unto themselves (the softcover is an abridged version and does not offer all of the contact sheets.) I have had the book for two weeks and have barely made a dent in it because of the richness offered and the lessons to be learned. The Americans and Robert Frank’s body of work were already inestimable contributions and as familiar as I am with those 83 images, I am stunned by how little I understood the skill and remarkable taste Frank had in his choices, the sequencing of the images, cropping and yes, even grant writing (the original letters are included.)
It is truly an eye-opening experience into how complete his talents are and how the mix of of them achieved a perfect balance with The Americans.
The one thing I will share is the tiniest snippet of a lesson I am absorbing. The shot of the elevator girl in Miami Beach has always been a favorite of mine. Below is an excerpt from the contact sheet with that image on it. You can see Frank working the situation and the idea over 14 frames.
Cartier-Bresson once said of contact sheets:
My contact sheets may be compared to the way you drive a nail in a plank. First you give several light taps to build up a rhythm and align the nail with the wood. Then, much more quickly, and with as few strokes as possible, you hit the nail forcefully on the head and drive it in.
Elevator, Miami Beach, 1955, Robert Frank
Excerpt from contact sheet from the book: Looking In: Robert Frank’s “The Americans”
30:
André Kértész remains my largest influence when I am behind the camera. It may have been chance that a professor lent me one of his books when I was eighteen but that chance gift was my introduction into the world of photography. Kértész was the first master whose images I studied and I pored over that book for hours. I could have easily been handed a monograph by Arbus or Avedon or Adams. Perhaps my professor knew what she was doing.
I have been following that initial insight and inspiration ever since. Many times I find myself unintentionally copying Kértész on the street.
There is a gentle humanistic quietness, an easy poetry to his images and a seeming raw, amateurish quality that makes his images readily accessible. The incredible perfection of Cartier-Bresson or Salgado can sometimes create a personal distance between the image and the viewer because the flawless, stunning compositions and technique can render an image almost to the level of a graphic, it being so pure of form and idea. The converse is Kértész’s work with its easy homeyness that is flawed and familiar, inviting and intimate, and in the end, deeply personal. The series of images he made of the glass sculpture that reminded him of his departed wife is a subject of heartbreaking vulnerability, a view that few of the masters have ever let us see.
He is considered the grandfather of street photography. The Getty Museum’s Photography Curator, Weston Naef described Kértész as
a little like Christopher Columbus, who discovered a new world that, in the end, was named for someone else.
Cartier-Bresson also said once said of himself, Robert Capa, and Brassaï, that
Whatever we have done, Kertész did first.
He is also credited by Brassaï as being his mentor and the one who encouraged him to document the nights of Paris.
Except for his celebrated period in Paris in the 20’s and 30’s, he has always been tragically under appreciated and oddly looked over especially after his relocation to the United States. Because of this, he is something of a photographer’s photographer, cherished by those who shoot and those who study those who have shot.
I still find myself looking at a proof sheet, wondering about the familiarity of an image I’ve created until I realize that it is my version of a Kértész.
I am an amateur, and I intend to remain an amateur for the rest of my life. The photograph gets its beauty from the very truth with which it is stamped. This is why I guard myself against any kind of professional trickery or virtuosity.
I attribute to photography the task of recording the real nature of things, their interior life. The photographer’s art is a continuous discovery which requires patience and time. A photograph draws its beauty from the truth with which it is marked.
André Kértész, 1930.
We all owe him a great deal.
Henri Cartier-Bresson.
André Kértész, Chez Mondrian, 1926
André Kértész, The Fork, 1928
André Kértész, Rainy Day Tokyo, 1968
André Kértész, Café du Dome, 1928
André Kértész, Martinique, 1972
André Kértész, Meudon, 1928
André Kértész, Ballet, 1938
24:
A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon this little alcove in the Metropolitan Museum of Art that was dedicated to the photographs of Helen Levitt, a small tribute to her work in light of her death in March 2009. I had been familiar with her work in passing but I had never seen any of her photos in person. These small dark prints had such delight and spoke so honestly of the street and in the capacity for the squalor of pre-war New York to be playful and whimsical.
Helen shot on the streets of New York most of her life (excepting a series in Mexico City) and documented the neighborhoods and sidewalk dwellers with an eye towards the lighthearted frolic of daily life that contrasted with the harsh urban streets, giving her images a surrealist quality. She had abandoned her large format camera after seeing an exhibit by Cartier-Bresson and began to use the 35mm Leica, occasionally with a prism to disguise the fact that she was photographing a subject.
She was a film editor and director and worked for Buñuel, works which I have not yet seen. In later years she used color, but for my own tastes, her images from the thirties and forties remain evocative and stirring.
Powerhouse Books has published several books of hers, some of which I will be buying shortly.
From the New York Times obituary.
Changes in neighborhood life also affected her work. “I go where there’s a lot of activity,” she said. “Children used to be outside. Now the streets are empty. People are indoors looking at television or something.”
Helen Levitt, Los Angeles Times, 1963
Helen Levitt, New York City, c 1939
Helen Levitt, New York City, c 1940
Helen Levitt, New York City, 1942
Helen Levitt, New York City, 1940
Helen Levitt, New York City, 1939
Helen Levitt, New York City, c 1940
Helen Levitt, New York c. 1945
Helen Levitt, New York c. 1942
Helen Levitt, Street Drawing, New York, 1940
Helen Levitt, New York c. 1942
Helen Levitt, New York City, c 1940
Helen Levitt, New York c. 1942
Helen Levitt, New York c. 1945
Helen Levitt, New York c. 1942
Helen Levitt, New York c. 1940
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