Henri Cartier-Bresson: Doing

Henri Cartier-Bresson was French photographer. Explore interesting quotes on doing.
Henri Cartier-Bresson: 66 quotes13 likes

“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? ­”

Henri Cartier-Bresson

“Photography is solitary work. There is emulation. It is interesting to know what other people do. Even so, writers do not read everything that is published. A painter does not look at everything. You have to choose. It’s reality, it’s life that is important. We shouldn’t be sniffing around each other all the time, looking….”

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Source: Henri Cartier-Bresson: Interviews and Conversations, 1951-1998, The Main Thing Is Looking: Interview with Alain Desvergnes (1979), p. 75

“But with photography as with drawing or painting, once it is done I want to know whether it holds together or not. That is the real critique. I couldn’t care less if the person to whom I show what I do likes it or not — it takes all sorts to make a world and all that. To criticize is to put oneself in someone else’s shoes and try to figure out what they wanted to do. Only the “why” of things is important to me.”

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Source: Henri Cartier-Bresson: Interviews and Conversations, 1951-1998, We Always Talk Too Much: Conversation with Pierre Assouline (1994), p. 132

“Nobody at Magnum decides for the other what he should do and everyone is free to tell someone else: “Well, what about this story? I don’t like it for this and that reason — because of this picture.” It is extremely fruitful to have somebody to talk to as an equal. This give and take is a most profitable thing because we keep learning from each other. I keep learning from the younger members just as I learned from Bob [Robert] Capa and Chim [David Seymour] how to make picture stories. Cornell Capa, for instance, has a very keen journalistic sense; and as for the other photographer, each makes his own contribution. Everybody in Magnum has full freedom; there’s no doctrine, there is no school, but there is something that unites all of us very strongly — I can’t define it; it may be a certain feeling of freedom and a respect for reality.”

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Source: Henri Cartier-Bresson: Interviews and Conversations, 1951-1998, Conversation. Interview with Byron Dobell (1957), pp. 34-35

“If I am asked about the photographer’s role in our times, the power of the image and so on, I do not want to launch into explanations. I only know that people who know how to look are as rare as those who know how to listen.”

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Source: Henri Cartier-Bresson: Interviews and Conversations, 1951-1998, To Seize Life: Interview with Yvonne Baby (1961), p. 45

“This book [Zen in the Art of Archery], by Herrigel, which I discovered a few years ago, seems to me fundamental to our profession as photographers. Matisse wrote similarly about drawing: set a discipline, make rigor a rule, forget oneself completely. And in photography the attitude must be the same: detach oneself, do not try to prove anything at all. My sense of freedom is the same: a frame that allows any variation. This is the basis of Zen Buddhism, the evidence: that you go in with great force and then you succeed in forgetting yourself.”

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Source: Henri Cartier-Bresson: Interviews and Conversations, 1951-1998, Only Geometricians May Enter: Interview with Yves Bourde (1974), p. 65