Henri Cartier-Bresson was deeply influenced by the contemporary movement known as surrealism, which encouraged artists and writers to explore the meaning that lay hidden below the surface of everyday life. In the hands of the surrealists, photography became a way to reveal significance that would otherwise be invisible or lost. When captured in a photograph, a simple gesture, chance meeting, or mundane setting could convey great beauty or tragedy or humor.
Despite the spontaneous nature of his subjects, Henri Cartier-Bresson never abandoned his formal training as an artist. Each image is a complete composition within a single frame of film, and it cannot be cropped or altered without destroying the whole. This whole image can take many different forms. In the hands of Cartier-Bresson, a photographic portrait seems transparent, as if no photographer has intervened between the subject and the viewer. “We might be eavesdropping on Coco Chanel as she laughs with delight, we might have surprised Carson McCullers and her companion, George Davis, stretched out on the lawn, or have strolled unannounced into William Faulkner's backyard.” We feel that we know them, because Cartier-Bresson captures what seems to be the essence of their being, the way they look when they are most themselves. These images convey a palpable physical relationship between the viewer and the subject.
“Photography is an instantaneous operation, both sensory and intellectual—an expression of the world in visual terms and also a perpetual quest and interrogation. It is at one and the same the recognition of a fact in a fraction of a second and the rigorous arrangement of the forms visually perceived which give to that fact expression and significance.”
I hope that I am able to capture the same type of side of people that Henri Cartier-Bresson does. All of his portraiture holds a little something extra in them, in the look of his subjects and how they are so comfortable even though there is a photographer right in front of them.
Website:
http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/cb/index-int2.htm
Interview:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1318621
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1995/mar/02/the-moment-that-counts-an-interview-with-henri-car/
Gallery:
http://www.artnet.com/artist/3702/henri-cartier-bresson.html
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