Today marks the 110th Anniversary of one of the greatest of all photographers (and a personal favorite of mine): Henri Cartier-Bresson.
It also gives me the opportunity to highlight a publication I picked up a couple of months ago at the International Center of Photography: Henri Cartier-Bresson. Interviews and Conversations 1951-1998. It contains 12 interviews with the Master. As the foreword says:
Henri Cartier-Bresson often defined himself as a visual person. “I watch, watch, watch. I understand things through my eyes.” he wrote in 1963. Throughout his life, his preferred language was the image. He did take a lot of notes during his reporting and kept a constant correspondence with his family, but in the end he wrote little about his own photographic practice…it is in fact in his interviews that Cartier-Bresson’s liveliest thinking can be found. It is the one place where the photographer has indeed not been sparing with his words.
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Most of these talks have not been reissued since their publication and are therefore difficult to find. They reveal a fascinating and passionate Cartier-Bresson, who talks about his photography, comments on the state of the world, and reflects on his path. Spread over nearly half a century, his word make it possible to perceive the evolution of the photographer’s thinking: he backs down from his comments, changes his mind, sometimes contradicts himself. The image that the interviews give of Cartier-Bresson is not frozen in legend, but on the contrary, alive and kicking.
