Henri Cartier-Bresson… at Centre Pompidou…

Henri Cartier-Bresson

French… photographer…

Father… of photojournalism…

Exhibiting… at the…

CentrePompidou

Was… inspirational…

His genius for composition, extraordinary visual intuitiion and ability to capture the most elusive and significant instants as they happened made Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908 – 2004) one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century“…

Travelling up several… “escalateurs“… to the sixth floor of this cumbersome monstrosity the… Centre Pompidou… was tiresome but we were hugely rewarded by the skyline view of Paris…

Breathtaking…Alberto Giacometti by Henri Cartier-Bresson...

The Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibition consisted of 500 photographs… drawings… paintings… films.. and documents of his most iconic and lesser known works.

Cartier-Bresson travelled extensively covering places like China… Mexico… Canada… USA… India… Japan… and the Soviet Union… where he was the first Western photographer to work “freely” in the post-war Soviet Union…

In 1952 he published his book… “Images à la sauvette“…  which in English was titled… “The Decisive Moment“… the cover was painted by Henri Matisse

Il n’y a rien dans ce monde qui n’ait un moment décisif“…

“There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment”…

This was his ideology… his philosophy in photographic style…

Photographier: c’est dans un même instant et en une fraction de seconde reconnaître un fait et l’organisation rigoureuse de formes perçues visuellement qui expriment et signifient ce fait.

“To me, photography is the sumultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression.”

Cartier-Bresson achieved international recognition for his coverage of Gandhi‘s funeral in 1948.  We were more than impressed by the incredibly emotive photos he took of that momentous occassion.  Also, his document portraits of CamusPicassoColetteMatissePound… and Giacometti… were rivetting.

I suddenly understood that a photographer could fix eternity in an instant.

In 2003 Cartier-Bresson with his wife Martine and daughter Mélanie created the… Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation… to preserve and share his formidable legacy.  Although a renowned photographer… Cartier-Bresson hated being photographed.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Crushed… tradition…

He… photographed…

With… his eyes…

His… senses…

An… outstanding…

Photographer…

An… extraordinary…

Man…

a.

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