Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri Cartier-Bresson, like many of the early photography pioneers, was one that started as a painter. He had an appreciation for capturing life. He loved the artistic side of it and had a candid eye for it. As a native to Paris, he was inspired by another photographers work and realized how amazing photography was at capturing life in the moments that would not often be seen with the naked eye. For example, the most influential photograph was done by a man named Martin Munkacsi. He photographed three children running into the surf of Lake Tanganyika. This urged him to get out into the streets and start taking pictures for himself.

Henri Cartier-Bresson actually spent a good part of his own time capturing life for the citizens of France and the rest of the world. He most prominently known for capturing some of the largest events in our world’s history. He was able to capture many photographs that many people were unable to get. Cartier-Bresson is known for many of his photographs of the Berlin Wall, wars, and conflicts during his lifetime.

Still, Henri Cartier-Bresson’s passion never waivered from his first love when he entered into the world of photography. His desire and some of his own personal favorite photographs were of the everyday ordinary life that most of us would not have seemed to care about at that given time. Including the famous photograph, Behind the Gare ST. Lazare.

One interesting note about Henri Cartier-Bresson is that he never liked to be photographed. In fact, he would deliberately go out of his way to avoid such a thing. Even though he was passionate about photography, he wanted nothing to do with being on the other side of things. In fact, when he graduated with an honorary degree from Oxford University in 1975, he held a piece of paper in front of his face to avoid being photographed. He stated later in 2000 that he hated being photographed primarily because he does not want to be photographed for his popularity or fame. It was not necessarily that he does not like to be photographed. Pictures of Henri Cartier-Bresson are quite rare.

Filed Under: Famous photographers

Tags: photographers, photojournalism, street photography, video