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.
—Henri Cartier-Bresson
Topics: Photography
The world is going to pieces and people like Adams and Weston are photographing rocks!
—Henri Cartier-Bresson
Topics: Photography
In every photographer there is something of a stroller.
—Henri Cartier-Bresson
Topics: Art
To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event.
—Henri Cartier-Bresson
Topics: Photography
The photograph itself doesn’t interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality.
—Henri Cartier-Bresson
Topics: Photography
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.
—Henri Cartier-Bresson
Topics: Photography
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.
—Henri Cartier-Bresson
Topics: Photography
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.
—Henri Cartier-Bresson
Topics: Photography
In a portrait, I’m looking for the silence in somebody.
—Henri Cartier-Bresson
Topics: The Artist
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.
—Henri Cartier-Bresson
Topics: Photography
In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little, human detail can become a Leitmotiv.
—Henri Cartier-Bresson
Topics: Photography
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.
—Henri Cartier-Bresson
Topics: Photography
A photograph is neither taken nor seized by force. It offers itself up. It is the photo that takes you. One must not take photos.
—Henri Cartier-Bresson
Topics: Photography
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- Thomas Masson American Journalist
- Robert Quillen American Journalist
- Midge Decter American Journalist
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- Jim Bishop American Journalist
- Letty Cottin Pogrebin American Writer
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