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Nobody takes photographs, photographs take you.

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
Photograph
Nobody
Takes
Take
Photographs

More quotes by Henri Cartier-Bresson

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Only a fraction of the camera's possibilities interests me - the marvelous mixture of emotion and geometry, together in a single instant.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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One eye looks within, the other eye looks without.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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In order to give meaning to the world, one has to feel oneself involved in what he frames. This attitude requires concentration, a discipline of mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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It seems dangerous to be a portrait artist who does commissions for clients because everyone wants to be flattered, so they pose in such a way that there's nothing left of truth.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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The most difficult thing for me is a portrait. You have to try and put your camera between the skin of a person and his shirt.
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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This recognition, in real life, of a rhythm of surfaces, lines, and values is for me the essence of photography composition should be a constant of preoccupation, being a simultaneous coalition - an organic coordination of visual elements.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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Why do photographers start giving numbers to their prints? It’s absurd. What do you do when the 20th print has been done? Do you swallow the negative? Do you shoot yourself? It’s the gimmick of money.
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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Sharpness is a bourgeois concept
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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Memory is very important, the memory of each photo taken, flowing at the same speed as the event.
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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...it is seldom indeed that a composition which was poor when the picture was taken can be improved by reshaping it in the dark room.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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The only thing which completely was an amazement to me and brought me to photography was the work of Munkacsi. When I saw the photograph of Munkacsi of the black kids running in a wave, I couldn't believe such a thing could be caught with the camera. I said, 'Damn it', I took my camera and went out into the street.
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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I suddenly understood that a photograph could fix eternity in an instant.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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The camera is for us a tool, not a pretty mechanical toy ... people think far too much about techniques and not enough about seeing.
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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It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera... they are made with the eye, heart and head.
Henri Cartier-Bresson