Photo Quotes ArchiveQuotes by Henri Cartier-Bresson (24 quotes)
"Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again. We cannot develop and print a memory."
"The simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression... In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little human detail can become a leitmotif."
"In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little, human detail can become a leitmotiv."
"Actually, I'm not all that interested in the subject of photography. Once the picture is in the box, I'm not all that interested in what happens next. Hunters, after all, aren't cooks. "
"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."
"I am neither an economist nor a photographer of monuments, and I am not much of a journalist either. What I am trying to do more than anything else is to observe life."
"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."
"Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes."
"In photography, you've got to be quick, quick, quick, quick...Like an animal and a prey."
"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."
"The photograph itself doesn't interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality."
"The most difficult thing for me is a portrait. You have to try and put your camera between the skin of a person and his shirt."
"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst."
"In a portrait, I’m looking for the silence in somebody."
"Photography is nothing--it's life that interests me."
"Photography is, for me, a spontaneous impulse coming from an ever attentive eye which captures the moment and its eternity."
"To take photographs means to recognize-simultaneously and within a fraction of a second-both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning. It is putting one’s head, one’s eye and one’s heart on the same axis."
"Memory is very important, the memory of each photo taken, flowing at the same speed as the event. During the work, you have to be sure that you haven't left any holes, that you've captured everything, because afterwards it will be too late."
"Think about the photo before and after, never during. The secret is to take your time. You mustn't go too fast. The subject must forget about you. Then, however, you must be very quick."
"It is essential, therefore, to approach the subject on tiptoe – even if the subject is still-life. A velvet hand, a hawk’s eye – these we should all have. It’s no good jostling or elbowing. 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. Unless a photographer observes such conditions as these, he may become an intolerably aggressive character."
"The camera is for us a tool, not a pretty mechanical toy … people think far too much about techniques and not enough about seeing."
"Technique is important only insofar as you must master it in order to communicate what you see."
" They ... asked me: 'How do you make your pictures?' I was puzzled ... I said, I don't know, it's not important."
"As time passes by and you look at portraits, the people come back to you like a silent echo. A photograph is a vestige of a face, a face in transit. Photography has something to do with death. It's a trace."
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