The Decisive Moment by Henri Cartier-Bresson

Arguably the supreme master of candid photography, and one of the earliest adopters of the 35mm format, Henri Cartier-Bresson (HCB for short) is far and away one of the most storied and legendary image-makers in the entire history of photography. We honor him and his legacy this week, and thank him for all that he has done for our craft.

Born in France to a wealthy family (he was the first of 5 children), Cartier-Bresson was destined to break the mold of expectations set before him by his parents. He did not want to be a part of the family business, nor did he want to fall prey to the bourgeois attitudes & lifestyles that seemed to dominate his family’s station. However, given their position, this provided a distinct advantage for HCB as they were able to financially support him as he developed his interests (and talents) on his own independent schedule. It’s also worth noting that photography was not his first venture into the world of the arts, no, he made an unsuccessful attempt to learn music when he was rather young, and was soon afterwards introduced to oil painting by his uncle (who unfortunately died during World War I). By 1927, HCB was enrolled in a private art school where he was exposed to all of the new modern art-forms that were beginning to develop during this era. He did experience photography during this time, but it wasn’t until the beginning of the 1930′s that he became truly motivated to pursue it.

He was inspired by a photograph taken in 1930 by Martin Munkacsi (a Hungarian Photojournalist) of three black children that were just on the verge of becoming total silhouettes running towards the shoreline of Lake Tanganyika. This spontaneous moment exuded freedom, grace and joy of life to HCB. After experiencing this new enlightenment in the power of photography he had said:

“The only thing which completely was an amazement to me and brought me to photography was the work of Munkacsi. When I saw the photograph of Munkacsi of the black kids running in a wave I couldn’t believe such a thing could be caught with the camera. I said damn it, I took my camera and went out into the street.”

That moment is what captivated HCB to take photography seriously, to the effect that he stopped painting all together. This is also the point in his timeline when he would get his first Leica camera, which would ultimately form the most perfect symbiotic relationship between a photographer and a particular brand of camera (to this day, when I think of Leica, I think of HCB). This new small camera would allow him to document life’s fleeting milliseconds in the most candid of ways; he was able to capture the world as it actually was.