Cartier-Bresson decisive moment

Henri cartier bresson Henry Kadir Bray

He is a famous photographer in France. He studied painting when he was young, and 1930 began to create photography. 193 1 traveled widely and his works began to be published in newspapers, magazines and books. He prefers black-and-white photography, likes Lycra 135 paraxial camera and 50mm standard lens, opposes cutting photos and using flash, and thinks that the scene light should not be disturbed. He is considered as one of the greatest photographers in the 20th century and the founder of modern news photography. His "decisive moment" photography theory influenced countless later photographers.

1952, Bresson's book The Decisive Moment (French: Imagesàla sauvette/ English: The decisional Moment) was published. Since then, this book has almost become the bible of documentary photography. The French version of Imagesàla Sauvette, which means "running images" or "stolen images", was named by Tériade, a Greek-French publisher whom Bresson admired himself. The English name "decisive moment" is Simon &; Dick Simon from Schuster Press took it.

"Photography is different from painting," Bresson said in an interview with Washington post at 1957. "The second you shot was a creative moment. What you build and express is what life itself provides you. You must judge when to press the shutter by intuition. The moment you press the shutter, it is created by the photographer. Oh ... yes, this is the moment! Once you miss it, it no longer exists. "

Soon after he started taking pictures, he bought a Leica and a 50 mm lens. These two things have basically followed him all his life. In the 1930s, Leica was a rare thing. There are not many in France. According to the current price, it will cost hundreds of thousands. But since he is a rich boy, he bought it as soon as he was happy. Leica also has a great influence on his shooting style. At that time, it was basically an era of large and medium formats. 135 The camera is very fresh. A small and light camera like Leica is very novel. It's kind of like seeing a digital camera in the late 1990s. This gave Bresson a lot of freedom. He can take pictures in the busy street, and no one will notice him at all. Because people don't know it's still a camera. He painted all the reflective parts of the camera with black paint. So he was almost invisible when he took pictures. Because Leica focuses very quickly and accurately at a focal length of 50 mm, it also gives him more opportunities to shoot fleeting things. He has taken photos in many places. Perhaps the most famous was filmed in Paris and other European cities. But the photos that really made him gain great prestige were actually taken in India and China in the late 1940s. Especially many records of China's civil war. It is natural to think about it: Westerners at that time were very concerned about anything from the East.

Bresson's shooting style is obvious: it is always 50 mm, basically all his famous photos are 50 mm, and then he is always shooting fleeting things. I don't remember him having any good still scenery photos. Bresson is a typical street sweeper: he walks around the street with his Leica and takes a picture from time to time. Sometimes when he goes to an interesting place, he will stand for a while, waiting for something interesting to happen. At that time, Leica was shooting manually, so continuous shooting was impossible. In other words, all the actions he took were the result of pressing the shutter at that moment. His works caused such a great response, largely because of this. It was difficult for people at that time to see such real and dynamic photos. Of course, this also benefits from the larger aperture and faster film of Leica lens. /kloc-portrait photography in the 0 th and 9 th centuries always uses a head clip to fix a person's head in one position. Because it's been exposed for too long. Of course, he is not the initiator of this method. Almost soon after Kodak first invented it, many such photos and photographers appeared. However, he is definitely the first person to bring this true and natural photography style to the extreme.

Bresson invented the concept of "decisive moment", and he believed that the charm of photography lies in instantaneous solidification. Therefore, he is always looking for those moments of orgasm. Judging from his photos, I don't think he is a patient person. He never seems to wait in one place for long. If what you want hasn't arrived in a few minutes, move on. And there are few strange perspectives in his photos. For example, down from a height or up from the bottom. Almost all of them were taken from a place close to head-up. But he rarely doesn't adjust the angle of taking pictures at all. For example, it is common to bend a little or run. But nothing can make people think, "Where did he take this?" Photos of. So you can say that he is a little lazy, but he has outstanding visual intuition. So is his grasp of the present. In his most famous photos, the main characters in the picture are moving quickly through the picture. This means that he must accurately predict the movements of characters and the differences in composition caused by different positions. Now because of the improvement of the continuous shooting function of the camera, people are not very skilled in this technology.