Research: Henri Cartier-Bresson

So, I come to the second assignment in the people and place course, and I didn't have to think that long or hard to decide who to research. This entire chapter has been about people unaware, and who better to look into than Henri Cartier-Bresson, seen by many as the father of modern photojournalism, and in my opinion, possibly the greatest street photographer of all time.

Firstly, I came across this video on you-tube of his photographs, and it's the only way I could include such a quantity of photographs in this blog post. So I urge you to watch it through, because the standard of work throughout is quite remarkable:



Henri was a quite incredible man. He was born into a well off family, and grew up in a bourgeois neighbourhood in Paris. He got a good education, and loved painting, thanks to his Uncle teaching him when he was young. He went to a private art school, run by french artist André Lhote. He also studied at the University of Cambridge, and spent a year as a hunter in the Ivory Coast. To add to all this, he was captured during the Second World War, and was held in a German prisoner of war camp, from which he escaped on his third attempt.


So even without photography, Cartier-Bresson certainly experienced life. He got into photography after his work at art school, when he first picked up a Leica camera. He fell in love with the way his camera and a 50mm lens could capture real life, it was a form of instant art for him. This was very much visible in all his work. He was capturing the 'poetry' of life, and hence every one of his images was composed beautifully, as a scene as a whole, and not just of the person or people that were the main object of his scene.


But even with all this, for me, Cartier-Bresson's largest impact was with his term "the decisive moment". He had a book published under this name in England, and it is a quote that has stuck in people's memories. "There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment". And he was quite right. The biggest art to capturing photographs of this nature, is capturing the right moment, and of this, he was a master. From the perfectly timed image of the man trying to leap over the puddle, caught in mid air, just before he hits the puddle, to a cyclist caught in exactly the right point of the image, to complete the composition with the railings from the stairs. Cartier-Bresson really did know how to pluck the best moment, from a scene in-front of him, and capture it forever in a photograph.


I must admit, Street photography has never really been my thing. I felt it to be snooping, exploiting others, and it seems to have developed a trend for showing people in a bad light. This was just my opinion, and it may just be me that thinks like this. But researching Henri Cartier-Bresson has really inspired me. He has shown a whole new side to street photography. In a lot of his images, the people are anonymous, just characters in a bigger picture. He captured the beauty of everyday life, those hidden moments we see but do not register, and this really is not that far from the photography I am used to, portrait and wedding photography, where the decisive moment is key, the look from a groom as he sees his bride approaching, the natural giggle from the person in the portrait sitting, the tear in a proud mothers eye, as her son makes his speech. To me, the decisive moment is definitely the key in every form of photography.


Sources:
http://www.photo-seminars.com/Fame/bresson.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Cartier_Bresson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8PoJamI1bg

Exercise 15: Public space, public activity

It’s been a while since I posted, having worked very hard on my photography website (www.paulburgessphotography.co.uk) and finishing the assignment in my other OCA course (www.digitalfilmproduction.blogspot.com). However, whenever I had a spare minute I was trying to get out to photograph this exercise. Being the great English winter though, the weather was always against me.

So eventually I contacted my tutor, and we agreed I would just write up about this exercise in order for me to be able to progress with the course. This exercise was moving from an organised event, onto an organised space, ie a beach or a park, that would contain a number of activites. This is an interesting topic and I would certainly have tried to capture a good variety in people’s activites, looking out for family picnics, office worker’s having a lunchtime kickabout, couple going for a walk in the park, etc. I would like the variety a park would bring to this form of photography.

I would use a long lens in most cases, to keep the natural feel to procedings, with the subjects not aware I was there, waiting for the right expression to complete the picture. I would also quite like an overall activity shot, showing the varied use of the area, all together.

Just to add some photographs to this, I will add some from my summer holiday in Sal (Cape Verde). We went for a walk along the beach, and I took a few snaps of the locals on the beach. It sort of relates to this topic so I will upload the few that do.

Watching the waves crash in

Waiting for the surf

Jumping off the pier

Diving in

Exercise 14: An Organised Event

It has been a while since I last posted, due to a number of reasons. One of which being a very busy period sorting things out for my photography business, but also because I've been looking for a possible event I could photograph for this. However weather, and the time of year have been against me, so I've decided I will do the write up about the folk festival I shot for the last two projects which I did also photograph with this project in mind.

I have shown a fair summary of the folk festival over these two exercises, from the movement, colour and of course the dancing in the first two wide angle shots, along with the slightly quirkier side with the morris dancer waiting outside the fish and chip shop in the third of these. I also feel the shots in the standard view exercise really show some of the individuals at this event. However I will add one more shot to the mix and that is below:

I feel this image shows the popularity of the event a bit more than the others, with the crowds on the far side of the morris dancers, and the way the morris dancers are just dancing anywhere on the streets, with here next to the post office, just on the pavement outside. It's certainly one weekend of unusual activity in Tenterden, and it does attract many people to come and watch.

Exercise 13: A standard view

The next exercise was to use a standard focal length for street images. For this I used my 50mm f/1.8 lens. Despite being my cheapest, I love this lens, as the creative possibilities with the shallow depth of field are endless, and I love being forced to move myself to compose, it makes me look for different images than I would otherwise. I took these photographs at the folk festival in my local town again.

The image above was taken during the parade in the folk festival. I thought this was a fairly quirky portrait, despite being noticed by the subject in the image, I feel it works well as an image, displaying the dress well, and capturing him looking into the onlookers as he walks down the high street.

This is the second image I chose for this exercise. These were street performers at the folk festival, musicians to accompany the dancers. While another photographer was with these people they had stopped playing for a minute while she tried to get them to pose for the shot she wanted. Whilst she was doing this I saw the opportunity where these two musicians were casually moving, but created a great composition in front of me, so I quickly grabbed the moment to show both the drummer and the other musician (not sure what the instrument is called!) together in their unusual dress (even for morris dancers!).

I really like the above image as it captures the dancer in perfect focus in the dance, staring straight ahead, but with an expression that denotes the internal concentration. The dancers in the background mirroring her moves also add to the picture, and give a good sense of the movement of the dance.

I enjoyed using this lens in street photography. I felt it was more me than the wide angle lens, as it gave a very good perspective on what I saw at the event. It also allowed me to identify individuals, but still show some of the scene they were in.

Exercise 12: Up Close and Involved

When I saw this exercise, I knew it would be very challenging to get up close, so I waited for an event where I felt more comfortable to do this sort of photography, using the wide angle lens. Below are a selection of images from the Folk Festival in my local town.

Although above is not strictly "up close" I felt it was a shot I couldn't resist taking. To see one of the morris dancers, in full dress casually leaning against a wall outside of a fish and chip shot. I felt standing back just a bit with my wide angle lens (sigma 12-24, on a full frame, so it is an extremely wide lens). I felt showing this in context with the fish and chip shop was the only way that it would work.

These dancers were dancing right in front of me. I was near the widest to fit the entire scene in. I felt this captured the atmosphere and movement in the dance very well, as I was so close, I almost felt a part of it myself.

Again this is a very wide angle shot. I deliberately took it so you could see the police car in the background as it added a bit of contrast to the image, with the men in bright white, traditional morris dancers, waving their hankies about, while the police stand on and watch.

It was uncomfortable to be so close to the people when taking the photographs, its completely the opposite to the telephoto, as it is impossible to stay unnoticed. I don't think I handled this as well as the telephoto project, but am still reasonably pleased with the images I did capture.

Exercise 11: Standing back

For this exercise I was in my local town of Tenterden. I used my small compact camera to help stay unnoticed, and as this had a powerful telephoto zoom, it was ideal for the job. Below are the four best images I took on the day

I think the four images above display quite a wide variety of actions, at a number of different locations. I found the actually challenge of taking the photos was tough. Despite the distance the telephoto lens gave me from the subject, sometimes it was still difficult to stay unnoticed. However the focal length gave a very good opportunity to isolate the subject from the scene, making it ideal for picking out individuals and small groups, which shows in the images that I finally settled on.

Exercise 10: Moment and gesture

For this exercise my comfortable situation was a round of pitch and putt with a few of my mates (first one I lost in a while as well, must be because of my attention was focussed on the photography and not the golf!). I thought this was the ideal situation to both capture people's emotions (we do get quite competitive) and the sense of timing with the ball being in the right position etc.

The above image I thought was a good capture. It shows the concentration of the player lining up his putt, but also the interest of his fellow competitors in the background. I think this image is succesful due to the position of the various points of interest in the frame.
I liked this shot which was actually taken on the final hole of the course. The player shown was putting for the win, and you can see in his face, him trying to exert his will on the ball to make it go in the hole. I thought this was a great shot that summed up the tension and competitive nature of the moment

Above we have the key moment in the game. Up to this hole (the 6th of 9) there was 1 shot between the four competitors, but above Tom sinks the putt to gain 2 shots on everyone else and the emotion showed. I think the timing and the framing of this shot were successful being able to capture the height of the celebration, but also the disgruntled opponent in the background

This was the final hole and the final shot of our round. The player taking the shot already new he could only finish second, but I thought the shot itself was good timing, with the ball just dropping into the hole, not the only shot I got like this, but certainly the best as each of the competitors is looking at the ball as it drops into the hole.

I enjoyed this exercise, it was a good way to notice the opportunites for interesting shots, practice the timing, and learn to read where there is the potential for emotion, action, and drama to occur, and be ready with the camera to capture the moment as and when it occurs