Henri Cartier-Bresson, the keys to the decisive moment: photographs and analysis

According to RAE, an instant is “a very short portion of time”, for Henri Cartier-Bresson it is something else, it is the difference between a normal photograph and one worth remembering.

To speak of Henri Cartier-Bresson is to speak of the father of photojournalism par excellence and of one of the best photographers of the 20th century.

He coined the term that in photography is known as "the decisive moment" or "decisive moment". A concept that arises from his vision of photography as “the only means of expression that always fixes the precise and fugitive moment”.

With this, the photographer revealed a complex term that does not consist of taking “free will” snapshots but, rather, in the anticipation that the photographer must have when perceiving reality and preparing to capture a unique and unrepeatable.

What are these "decisive moments" like? What factors influence to be able to capture them?

Let's learn the keys to those "decisive moments" to understand this genius of photography.

In search of a "unique" moment

The 20th century is that of Cartier-Bresson. His photographs narrated the history of the first half of the last century, he was present in events as important as the death of Gandhi, the Spanish Civil War or the Second War World.

He also left for posterity the most famous portraits of characters such as Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Marie Curie or Pablo Picasso, among others.

Henri Cartier-Bresson always trusted in the possibility of capturing “unique images”, those that were “a story in itself”. To achieve them he attended to factors such as: the object, the composition and the color.

The object "is everywhere"

What good is a photo from which no meaning can be drawn, which has no emotion or conveys any message?

In a world in which we are “saturated” with images, Cartier-Bresson proposes honesty as a fundamental condition for a photographer. It is very important to observe the world around you and to be able to capture the precise subject, without succumbing to the temptation to photograph everything.

There are countless street photographs that present a good composition, however, they do not say anything. Henri Cartier-Bresson's legacy contains images loaded with meaning.

One of the most representative is the one called "After the San Lázaro station" made in Paris in 1932. What does this snapshot have? Why is it one of the most representative photos of Cartier-Bresson's street photography?

In the surroundings of a train station a scene of daily life emerges. The silhouette of a man running down a garbage-strewn road. Has he missed his train?

The composition, in black and white, is almost poetic. The vertical and horizontal lines provide dynamism and the shadow reflected in the water creating a pictorial “mirror effect”.

But what is truly original about this photograph is the transformation of an ordinary place, such as the vicinity of a station, into a unique and eternal moment.

Bresson defended that the "object" was everywhere. He knew how to look around him and find him.

The truth through the portrait

Above all, I seek inner silence. I seek to transfer the personality and not an expression.

Albert Camus, Susan Sontag, Samuel Beckett, Isabelle Huppert or Marilyn Monroe were some of the most representative faces of the 20th century. The "character" they presented to the public overshadowed the "real" person behind each of them. What did Cartier-Bresson do about it?

A collection of portraits that tried to bare the soul of all of them. He sought to capture the most sincere side and leave aside all the tricks that would prevent a sharp "psychological study." For Bresson "the true portrait does not emphasize the refined or the grotesque, but tries to reflect the personality".

Thus, it manages to eliminate the control that a character can have over the photograph that they are going to take. The face, the gestures, the way of smiling, looking at the camera, the pose ...

Today, in the era of overexposure and social media, where we continually show "Artificial attitudes", would we be willing to "undress" before a discreet look like that of Cartier-Bresson?

The importance of intuition

Henri Cartier-Bresson was a proponent of photographing things "as they are". A photo is due to the coordination of the elements that compose it and geometry is important in it. But a photographer must be able to compose a photograph "about the same time it takes to release the shutter."

Composition is essential to the image and must be of constant concern to the photographer. However, when capturing a "decisive moment" the reaction of the photographer to the composition must be intuitive. He should not take a single minute to “think” about the composition, if so, he will let a moment slip away that will never come back.

The world in black and white

Much of the legacy, in the form of photographs, that Cartier-Bresson left could be elevated to the category of work of art.

One of the fundamental secrets of his photographic work is that he knew how to look and managed to capture universal moments.

The image is the projection of the personality of the photographer, that is why in our work there is no competition.

Cartier-Bresson was a very observant photographer, also very fussy and purist with photography. The photos of him speak to us, especially, of the first half of the 20th century and, all of them, with a vision of the world in black and white.

Because he was a photographer who did not trust artifice or the alteration of light through the "flash", that is why he never used it for his "decisive moments". He, too, was not interested in color photography, despite the fact that at that time he was still "in diapers."

This French photographer "sinned" by attending intensely to the fact of observing rather than to the advancement of the "photographic technique". He was a transgressor of the "norm" What was all this good for?

To show the world "as it is" and fill it with "decisive moments", those in which all the elements are perfectly combined.

Biography of Henri Cartier-Bresson

He was born in France in 1908 and is considered the father of the photo report. Before photography he tried his luck as a draftsman and painter.

At the beginning of the 1930s, he made a trip to Africa, a journey that made him acquire a camera and start in the world of photography. Also at this time he began to work as a photographer for the magazine Vu.

In 1937 he entered the world of cinema and made a documentary film entitled Victoire de la vie, whose argument revolved around republican Spain.

During World War II he was held in German prison camps. He then managed to escape to Paris and began working for the French resistance.

In 1945 he founded with Robert Capa, among others, the Magnum agency. What helped him to travel and visit places on different continents to capture "decisive moments".

In 2000, together with his wife, he created a foundation that bears his name in order to exhibit his photographic work. In August 2004 Henri Cartier-Bresson died at the age of 95.

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in Robert Capa: Photographs of a Myth

References

• Cartier-Bresson, H., & Pujol i Valls, N. (2006). Photograph from nature. Barcelona: Gustavo Gili.