Henri Cartier-Bresson Quotes About Photography
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To me, photography is the simultaneous 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. And this organization, this precision, will always escape you, if you do not appreciate what a picture is, if you do not understand that the composition, the logic, the equilibrium of the surfaces and values are the only ways of giving meaning to all that is continuously appearing and vanishing before our very eyes.
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Photography appears to be an easy activity; in fact it is a varied and ambiguous process in which the only common denominator among its practitioners is in the instrument.
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The camera is for us a tool, not a pretty mechanical toy ... people think far too much about techniques and not enough about seeing.
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The Photography is a chopper which in the eternity seizes the moment which dazzled it.
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I love painting. As far as photography is concerned, I understand nothing.
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Photography is a way of shouting, of freeing oneself, not of proving or asserting one's own originality. It's a way of life.
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Photographers deal in things which are continuously vanishing.
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Photographier: c'est mettre sur la meme ligne de mire la tete, l'oeil et le coeur.
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Reality offers us such wealth that we must cut some of it out on the spot, simplify. The question is, do we always cut out what we should?
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And no photographs taken with the aid of flashlight either, if only out of respect of the actual light—even when there isn't any of it.
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I suddenly understood that photography can fix eternity in a moment. It is the only photo that influenced me. There is such intensity in this image, such spontaneity, such joie de vivre, such miraculousness, that even today it still bowls me over.
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Photography has not changed since its origin except in its technical aspects, which for me are not important.
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The picture is good or not from the moment it was caught in the camera.
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One eye of the photographer looks wide open through the viewfinder, the other, the closed looks into his own soul.
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...it is seldom indeed that a composition which was poor when the picture was taken can be improved by reshaping it in the dark room.
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A photographer is part pick-pocket and part tightrope dancer.
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It seems dangerous to be a portrait artist who does commissions for clients because everyone wants to be flattered, so they pose in such a way that there's nothing left of truth.
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As far as I am concerned, taking photographs is a means of understanding which cannot be separated from other means of visual expression. It is a way of shouting, of freeing oneself, not of proving or asserting one's own originality. It is a way of life.
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Photography is only intuition, a perpetual interrogation - everything except a stage set.
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Only a fraction of the camera's possibilities interests me - the marvelous mixture of emotion and geometry, together in a single instant.
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Of all the means of expression, photography is the only one that fixes a precise moment in time.
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What reinforces the content of a photograph is the sense of rhythm - the relationship between shapes and values.
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Photography is nothing-it's life that interests me.
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The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box.
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We must avoid however, snapping away, shooting quickly and without thought, overloading ourselves with unnecessary images that clutter our memory and diminish the clarity of the whole.
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For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity.
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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.
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I'm not responsible for my photographs. Photography is not documentary, but intuition, a poetic experience. It's drowning yourself, dissolving yourself, and then sniff, sniff, sniff - being sensitive to coincidence. You can't go looking for it; you can't want it, or you won't get it. First you must lose your self. Then it happens.
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A photograph is neither taken or seized by force. It offers itself up. It is the photo that takes you. One must not take photos.
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Photography is simultaneously and instantaneously the recognition of a fact and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that express and signify that fact
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Henri Cartier-Bresson
- Born: August 22, 1908
- Died: August 3, 2004
- Occupation: Photographer
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