Nature's Pencil: Inspiration: Henri Cartier-Bresson
Cartier-Bresson is probably the most famous of all photographers. His life story reads more like the exploits of a fictional hero like Indiana Jones than a real person. He has lived through, participated in, and documented more than his fair share of the major events of the 20th Century.
When I first discovered his work, I admired a handful of the most striking and famous images, such as Rue Mouffetard, Paris, 1954 but it wasn't until after years of struggling (and failing) to make great photographs of my own that I really understood what all the fuss was about, and to appreciate the genius of his vision and timing.
Cartier-Bresson is famously linked with the phrase The Decisive Moment, which well describes his ability to capture the exact instant in time when everything comes together perfectly. This picture, Behind the Gare St. Lazare, with its many echoes and combinations of a few simple visual themes is his best known example.
Most photographers would be satisfied to capture such geometric perfection, apt postures and expressions, and the peak of action, just a few times in a lifetime. Cartier-Bresson managed it in frame after frame after frame. I am not convinced that there is always just one decisive moment. Much of the time a slightly different moment would give a different but equally compelling image. But capturing any one of those possible moments is still a special skill.
Not only is Cartier-Bresson a great photographer, but also he is a great writer. The 14 pages of text in The Decisive Moment contain more perceptive insight and instruction than all the other photography books I have read put together. In fact it fits Ezra Pound's definition of great literature as "language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree". In the final section Cartier-Bresson sums up his understanding of photography in one perfect sentence: 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.