A few words by Henry Cartier Bresson
[TIL #26] a bit like Yoda, only taller and French
Quotes are strange things. Liberated from the complex context of a book, an interview or a person’s lifework, they travel light and fast — all the more so in the digital age, when inspirational quotes (or demotivational ones) could almost be considered an artistic genre in themselves. Quotes are a snack, not a full meal. They are no more than a minimal glimpse into a lifework, a spark isolated from a fire, a summary of a person’s philosophy, an open-ended and evasive extract draped into the authority of the speaker. And they are used and misused in a huge variety of situations that may be entirely disconnected from the author’s intentions or experience.
And yet, as limited as they can be, quotes do the work. That is, these sentences produce an effect: they make us laugh, they inspire us, they help us understand something that had seemed opaque until we read these few words. Brief and alienated, sure, and yet they shine a light in the darkness.
« Lean on principles, one day they'll end up giving way. » (Oscar Wilde)
So i thought i would gather a few quotes of one of the most famous photographers in history. To be honest (and after all, why not), there was a time when i used to be irritated just at the sight of that name which kept popping up in everything i was reading and evoked an authoritarian, god-like, annoying figure of authority — i did not know much of the photographs at the time. But when i visited an exhibition of Les Européens, my mind was blown away and I became immensely curious about Henri Cartier-Bresson and his work.
More recently, at some point in the development of my project the drama on the stage within1, i wrote a short text with Henri Cartier Bresson in mind. It did not make it in the final version, but it serves here.
old Henri was a man of good taste
he walked around
with a golden Leica in his hand
and articulated beautiful quotes
for our tote bags and our mugs
yet when you look at the pictures
you know
he was a man of sincere curiosity
and a true master
a bit like Yoda
only taller and French
The idea of putting together a short collection of quotes emerged as i was watching Pierre Assouline’s 2012 documentary Le siècle d’Henry Cartier-Bresson. The film, which opens with HCB saying in English ‘my name is Henry Cartier-Bresson, i’m French and i take photographs’, is a slideshow accompanied by excerpts from interviews where he speaks about his life, photographs and photography. Sometimes, he bursts out in a short laugh at one picture. Listening to his voice, i imagined a somewhat stern and benevolent grandfather passing on life lessons and nuggets of wisdom.2
So here goes: here are a few sentences by Henri Yoda Cartier Bresson that have been truly helpful to me. They are taken from the movie but not presented in a chronological order.3 — And to be clear, i don’t own a mug or a tote bag for each of them…
Il n’y a rien à dire. Il faut regarder. On n’apprend pas aux gens à regarder. C’est tellement difficile de regarder.
There is nothing to say. One must look. You don’t teach people how to look. It is so difficult, looking.
La photographie est une espèce de chose intuitive qui colle à la réalité. Et qui sort de très profond en soi-même.
Photography is a kind of intuitive thing that sticks to reality. And it comes from very deep within oneself.
Le plaisir, c’est la géométrie, que ça tombe juste. Tout le reste, ça vient du subconscient. Pourquoi on appuie là, je ne sais pas moi. Soyons franc, il y a des choses qui vous font bander, et d’autres pas. Tout d’un coup, ça vous prend - c’est ça la vie.
The pleasure is in the geometry, in getting it right. Everything else comes from the subconscious. Why you press the button there, I don't know. Let's be honest, some things give you a hard-on, and others don't. All of a sudden, you're hooked - that’s what life is.
Il faut réfléchir tout le temps, sauf quand on photographie : alors là, c’est l’intuition.
You have to think all the time, except when you're photographing: then, it's intuition.
Il ne faut pas vouloir. Il faut être disponible, réceptif.
You have not to want. You have to be available and receptive.
Il s’agit toujours de poser la question : de quoi s’agit-il ?
It is always about asking the question: what's it all about?
D’où vient l’argent ?
Where does the money come from?
Une frontière existe entre la curiosité et l’indiscrétion.
There's a border between curiosity and indiscretion.
Si les gens ne veulent pas être photographiés, il faut le respecter.
If people don't want to be photographed, you have to respect that.
Il faut avoir des moyens très limités : un appareil et un objectif. Pour obtenir le maximum, pour saisir le vif à bras le corps.
You need to have very limited means: one camera and one lens. In order to get the maximum, to seize the moment with both hands.
Photographier, c’est amener sur la même ligne de mire la tête, l’oeil et le coeur. C’est une façon de vivre.
To photograph is to bring the head, the eye and the heart into the same line of vision. It's a way of life.
Photographier : c’est retenir son souffle quand toutes nos facultés convergent pour capter la réalité fuyante ; c’est alors que la saisie d’une image est une grande joie physique et intellectuelle.
Photographing is holding your breath when all our faculties converge to capture a fleeting reality; that is when capturing an image is a great joy physically and intellectually.
And i’ll end with two funny ones:
Simone de Beauvoir, whom he met for a portrait, asked if it was going to take long:
‘A little more than a dentist and a little less than a psychoanalyst.’
And towards the end of the movie, you hear him say:
‘I'm a pain in the ass. Am I not?’
That’s all for this time. I’ll be back in your inbox next week with an Open Book.
the drama on the stage within is a book that combines photographs and short free-form texts. There is a dialogue between the text and the photograph. The words influence how one reads the photograph, the photograph in turn influences the meaning of the text. The reader is invited into a conversation. The book looks at the inner life of human beings: absorbed in the drama on the stage within, we become oblivious of the world and we are hardly aware that our lives are governed by the stories and tales that our mind tells itself.
HCB is often associated with the notion of the decisive moment because it was the title of the English version of his 1952 book Images à la Sauvette. Instead of discussing the concept of the decisive moment here, i thought it would make sense to simply return to the words of HCB — the final paragraphs of his text in Images à la Sauvette offer a clear explanation of his philosophy of photography:
Une photographie est pour moi la reconnaissance simultanée, dans une fraction de seconde, d'une part de la signification d'un fait, et de l'autre d'une organisation rigoureuse des formes perçues visuellement qui expriment ce fait.
C'est en vivant que nous nous découvrons, en même temps que nous découvrons le monde extérieur, il nous façonne, mais nous pouvons aussi agir sur lui. Un équilibre doit être établi entre ces deux mondes, l'intérieur et l'extérieur, qui dans un dialogue constant, n'en forment qu'un, et c'est ce monde qu'il nous faut communiquer.
Mais ceci ne concerne que le contenu de l'image et pour moi, le contenu ne peut se détacher de la forme; par forme, j'entends une organisation plastique rigoureuse par laquelle seule nos conceptions et émotions deviennent concrètes et transmissibles. En photographie, cette organisation visuelle ne peut être que le fait d'un sentiment spontané des rythmes plastiques.
For me, a photograph is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, on the one hand of the meaning of a fact, and on the other of a rigorous organisation of the forms perceived visually that express that fact.
It is by living that we discover ourselves, at the same time as we discover the outside world; it shapes us, but we can also act on it. A balance must be established between these two worlds, the inner and the outer, which in constant dialogue form one, and it is this world that we need to communicate.
But this only concerns the content of the image, and for me, content cannot be detached from form; by form, I mean a rigorous plastic organisation through which alone our conceptions and emotions become concrete and transmissible. In photography, this visual organisation can only be the result of a spontaneous feeling for plastic rhythms.
Hilarious : A little more than a dentist and a little less than a psychoanalyst
:):)
Nice piece Pierre. I loved the quote about the geometry piece and the hard on. That’s creating in a nutshell for me. Finding something so pleasing.
It seems a very un-Bresson quote but I love it.