9.01.2002 Press photography
The Profile of Henri Cartier-Bresson
Janusz Wójtowicz
Henri Cartier-Bresson was born in France in 1908. In his youth, he was initially interested in painting and documentary filmmaking. A breakthrough came in 1932 when the twenty-four-year-old Cartier-Bresson purchased a small-format Leica camera, which he never parted with.
The subject of his photographs was everyday life, scenes that seemed trivial or even boring - he wanted to capture the truth. In his photographs, he always sought universal values, regardless of whether he worked in Europe, India, China, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico, Canada, the USSR, or Cuba.
He did not pay much attention to technique. His works were devoid of any manipulation of the photographic image. Only intuition mattered, which led to the formulation of the famous theory of the "decisive moment." This theory suggested that there exists a single moment when the composition and expression of the frame are right, and the photographer must be able to capture it. Many contemporary photojournalists, influenced by this, began to work more "mobile," using small-format cameras.
"There is nothing in the world that does not have its decisive moment."
In 1947, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, and David Seymour founded the photography agency MAGNUM, which quickly became the most famous agency in the world, gathering the best photojournalists. It developed a unique ethical code for the profession of photojournalism, and Cartier-Bresson was an undisputed authority within it. He ultimately left the agency in 1966, and after 1972, he stopped photographing altogether.
The photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson have been exhibited in the best museums and galleries, have repeatedly been published in album editions, and continue to inspire many followers to this day.
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