Home > Author > Henri Cartier-Bresson
1 " Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst. "
― Henri Cartier-Bresson
2 " It is through living that we discover ourselves, at the same time as we discover the world around us. "
― Henri Cartier-Bresson , Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century
3 " Reality offers us such wealth that we must cut some of it out on the spot, simplify. The question is, do we always cut out what we should? "
4 " We 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. "
5 " 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. "
6 " For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity. "
7 " 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. "
― Henri Cartier-Bresson , The Mind's Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers
8 " To photograph: it is to put on the same line of sight the head, the eye and the heart. "
9 " Photography is simultaneously and instantaneously the recognition of a fact and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that express and signify that fact "
10 " — How do you make your pictures? — I don’t know, it’s not important. "
11 " I believe that, through the act of living, the discovery of oneself is made concurrently with the discovery of the world around us, which can mold us, but which can also be affected by us. A balance must be established between these two worlds—the one inside us and the one outside us. "
12 " To take photographs is to hold one's breath when all faculties converge in the face of fleeing reality. It is at that moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.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. "
13 " Sharpness is a bourgeois concept "
14 " Photographier : c'est mettre sur la même ligne de mire la tête, l'oeil et le coeur. "
15 " qualunque cosa noi facciamo, kertész l’ha fatto prima. "
16 " The photograph itself doesn't interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality. "
17 " For the world is movement, and you cannot be stationary in your attitude toward something that is moving. "
18 " In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little human detail can become a Leitmotiv. "
19 " For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. In order to "give a meaning" to the world, one has to feel oneself involved in what one frames through the viewfinder. This attitude requires concentration, a discipline of the mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry. "
20 " Of all the means of expression, photography is the only one that fixes forever the precise and transitory instant. We photographers deal in things that are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished, there is no contrivance on earth that can make them come back again. We cannot develop and print a memory. The writer has time to reflect. He can accept and reject, accept again; and before committing his thoughts to paper he is able to tie the several relevant elements together. There is also a period when his brain "forgets," and his subconscious works on classifying his thoughts. But for photographers, what has gone is gone forever. "
