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I suddenly understood that a photograph could fix eternity in an instant.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

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Henri Cartier-Bresson
Age: 95 †
Born: 1908
Born: August 22
Died: 2004
Died: January 1
Film Director
Journalist
Painter
Photographer
Photojournalist
Henri Cartier Bresson
Henri Cartier- Bresson
Henry Cartier-Bresson
Bresson
Suddenly
Photograph
Eternity
Understood
Instant

More quotes by Henri Cartier-Bresson

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Photography appears to be an easy activity in fact it is a varied and ambiguous process in which the only common denominator among its practitioners is in the instrument.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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As far as I am concerned, taking photographs is a means of understanding which cannot be separated from other means of visual expression. It is a way of shouting, of freeing oneself, not of proving or asserting one's own originality. It is a way of life.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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Thinking should be done before and after, not during photographing.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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A photographer must always work with the greatest respect for his subject and in terms of his own point of view.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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It is the photo that takes you. One must not take photos.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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We must avoid however, snapping away, shooting quickly and without thought, overloading ourselves with unnecessary images that clutter our memory and diminish the clarity of the whole.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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In a portrait, I’m looking for the silence in somebody.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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Pictures should never be posed. They are 'revealed' so must be accepted as they are. Left alone.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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You just have to live and life will give you pictures.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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Sharpness is a bourgeois concept
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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Photography is nothing-it's life that interests me.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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Think about the photo before and after, never during. The secret is to take your time. You mustn't go too fast. The subject must forget about you. Then, however, you must be very quick.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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He made me suddenly realize that photographs could reach eternity through the moment.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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I love painting. As far as photography is concerned, I understand nothing.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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Pictures, regardless of how they are created and recreated, are intended to be looked at. This brings to the forefront not the technology of imaging, which of course is important, but rather what we might call the eyenology (seeing).
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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The simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression... In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little human detail can become a leitmotif.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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Thinking should be done before and after, not during photographing. Success depends on the extent of one's general culture. one's set of values, one's clarity of mind one's vivacity. The thing to be feared most is the artificially contrived, the contrary to life.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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Of all the means of expression, photography is the only one that fixes a precise moment in time.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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For the world is movement, and you cannot be stationary in your attitude toward something that is moving.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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I suddenly understood that photography can fix eternity in a moment. It is the only photo that influenced me. There is such intensity in this image, such spontaneity, such joie de vivre, such miraculousness, that even today it still bowls me over.
Henri Cartier-Bresson