Alan Gibson
(K=2734) - Comment Date 11/4/1999
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Love the photos, hate the site. With luck, I'll be able to get to the gallery. The photos I looked at on the site were relatively formal studies, certainly more formal (and less successful, IMHO) than the ones he is really known for.
Interesting that some are quite recent: this decade. I think I read somewhere that he still takes photos 'for friends'. Perhaps these are his friends? And relatives!
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Chris Yeager
(K=139) - Comment Date 11/4/1999
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Yeah, the site is unbelievably weird. I'm drawn to shooting portraits more than anything else, and I always gravitated to stuffing the frame with close ups, but Bresson showed me that that was kind of a cheap trick and you shouldn't be afraid to pull back, even with 35.
The show does seem to be pulled towards the "celebrity portraiture" scheme that gets people in the doors of museums, but isn't it interesting how Bressons idea of a "celebrity" compares with, say, Herb Ritts'...
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Bill Mitchell
(K=659) - Comment Date 11/4/1999
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Who is Herb Ritts, and what is his idea of a celebrity? (Excuse my ignorance, this is not a smart-ass question. Or at least it's not intended as such.)
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Tony Rowlett
(K=1575) - Comment Date 11/4/1999
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Alan, I'm curious what you mean by "relatively formal studies, certainly more formal (and less successful, IMHO) than the ones he is really known for." ? The photos on the washingtonpost site seem very H.C.-B.ish to me.
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Chris Yeager
(K=139) - Comment Date 11/4/1999
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Bill:
You know, this stuff:
http://www.globe.com/mfa/ritts/group.htm
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Bill Mitchell
(K=659) - Comment Date 11/4/1999
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Thanks. I guess that I've seen some of the pictures before, I just didn't realize they'd been made by a Great Photographer. Hope I'm not too old to learn a little.
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Alan Gibson
(K=2734) - Comment Date 11/5/1999
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In reply to Tony: I very simplistically (and informally) divide H.C- B's photos into three groups. Group 1 have the photos that place people within a formal geometric structure. There is often an element of time involved: a moment earlier or later, and the formalism is lost. Decisive moments. The people appear unaware of being photographed. Examples: Siphnos, 1961 [48], Rome 1951 [80], Mexico City, 1964 [241].
Group 2 are the 'named' portraits. The subjects are aware of the camera (and the viewer), and may be looking directly at the camera lens (and us). Examples: Ezra Pound, 1970 [188], Katherine Ann Porter, 1946 [67], Cioran, 1984 [17], Hortense Cartier-Bresson, 1979 [25], Roland Barthes, 1963 [248].
Group 3 are the rest, the ones that don't have the qualities of the first two groups. Examples: Brie, May 1968 [282], Ireland, 1963 [276], Near Trivandrum, Kerala, 1966 [141].
Of course, some images straddle the groups. Example: Andre Pieyre de Mandiargues, Italy, 1932 [83].
For me, the most successful photos, the most Bresson-ish images, are those in group 1. I think these will be immortal (but I accept that many people find them rather contrived, and even twee, compared to for example Andre Kertesz).
In my previous post, I was using 'formal' as in 'formal portraiture'. Not that he used softboxes and the like, but the group 2 photos are closer to formal portraiture than those in group 1. I'm not deriding the photos on this basis, and they do carry the H.C-B stamp, but they don't have the uniquely H-C.B qualities.
Oh yes, group 3? I don't find them very interesting.
[The numbers in square brackets are the plate numbers in 'Henri Cartier-Bresson and the Artless Art', Jean-Pierre Montier. The only example that is also on the web site is the portrait of Hortense.]
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Tony Rowlett
(K=1575) - Comment Date 11/5/1999
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Alan, thanks for explaining that. I can sure relate with your HCP Group 1, definitely the most appealing to me as well. Though what makes Group 2 interesting is the way HCB composed the portraits, often with the subject off center to one extreme or the other. I've always enjoyed the one of Matise holding the bird (dove?).
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Lot
(K=1558) - Comment Date 11/5/1999
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If there's one sincere portrait of Marilyn Monroe, Cartier-Bresson made it. Not exactly from the hip though.
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Bill Mitchell
(K=659) - Comment Date 11/5/1999
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I just had a look at the Washington Post website. It may be sacrilege, but I think the increased contrast and deeper shadows seen here on my screen make these pictures look much better than the same ones in his books. Comment?
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alan
(K=1843) - Comment Date 11/6/1999
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...It may be sacrilege, but I think the increased contrast and deeper shadows seen here on my screen make these pictures look much better than the same ones in his books. Comment?
It may interest you to learn that the photographer William Eggleston stated that he loved Cartier-Bresson's work when he saw it printed in a book, but when he saw the original prints, he was dissapointed -- he said the originals "were just photographs..." (I'm paraphrasing his remarks). I don't know what Eggleston meant but suspect that he enjoyed having them slightly abstracted, slightly reduced to a fewer number of tones so that the composition was more easily revealed to the eye --- perhaps our eyes get lost in all the photographic details and we have trouble seeing the picture because were distracted by all the reality in it?
I like the photographs --- I think as an artist Bresson probably had to change -- I mean, what do you do once you become known for a portfolio of photographs you did so early in your career? The decisive moments are fantastic when they are fresh -- but some of the later decisive moment stuff (I'm thinking of the "Man And Machine" book he did in particular) looks a little stale in comparison.
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alan
(K=1843) - Comment Date 11/6/1999
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Oh - forgot to add --- I liked the decisions made on what to include in this exhibit. I love the Decisive Moment stuff, but some of the pictures in this collection have not gotten the attention they deserve. After years of suffering Leibowitz's shenanigans (I still haven't forgiven her for silly photos like Whoopi Goldberg in a bathtub full of milk) and all the exhibits of embalmed celebrities that show up at every museum that wants to show photo portraits, its nice to see some work with a little life to it. Check out his photo of Truman Capote.
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Lot
(K=1558) - Comment Date 11/6/1999
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Last year I saw the exhibition 'Les Europeens' in Bruxelles. All images were printed on the same format, about 30*40, probably on Ilford MG and it appeared to me that everything was printed via an internegative, probably a 4*5 inch copy of some original print. It looked very much like a professional lab having done a series of reproduction work. Sometimes flat prints indeed. But what does it matter actually; Cartier-Bresson's work shouldn't be judged on tonal scale but on content.
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Tom Meyer
(K=3514) - Comment Date 11/6/1999
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I cannot think of a genre of photography that more critically relies on the "decisive moment" than portraiture. That is why I prefer a rangefinder camera to an slr for portraits...t
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Mani Sitaraman
(K=312) - Comment Date 11/9/1999
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Tete-a-tete has been around as an exhibition for a while. When I first saw the pictures in a book last year, my reaction was about the same as Alan's above (BTW, useful classification, Alan); that they were less interesting aesthetically than his extraordinary how-did-he- do-that "group 1" pictures.
But revisiting the pictures (albeit by high speed internet link, though the format is still very clunky), they look a lot more fresh and more nuanced than I previously thought.
They are fabulous examples of environmental portraiture, and instructive in revealing how mundane environmental elements, in shadow and out of focus, can still support the structure of the picture in a pretty precise and formal way.
Perhaps it is because in the interim one has overdosed on more recent celebrity/rock'n roll portraiture styles, Herb Ritts and Annie Leibovitz being the obvious candidates, but also Richard Avedon, in his own way using the same "loudness" of style, for want of a better word.
These pictures are a lot quieter.
And although I'm tempted to agree with Tom, I don't think it is just the transmitted light, Scala-like look of images on a CRT :-). Also incidentally, pictures like these (or Robert Capa's or indeed any of a myriad of great pictures) reveal how unnecessary technical quality is (grain, sharpness,etc.) when your vision is strong.
As for his "Group 3" pictures, Alan, I think they really don't work in isolation. If you can get copies of his books on India, and China at the time of the Communist revolution, the pictures are revealed to be what they are, elements in very powerful photo-essays, rather than individual images.
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Alan Gibson
(K=2734) - Comment Date 11/9/1999
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Lots of people, including his (ex) co-workers, call him Bresson, so why shouldn't we?
Mani, yes, I agree that what I called group 3 are much better as part of a photo story. I can't put my hands on it, but I have a copy of (I think) 'Bresson in India'. I don't think he is a master of that form, compared to group 1 anyway.
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Mani Sitaraman
(K=312) - Comment Date 11/10/1999
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Actually, I think the filmmaker is Luc BESSON (no R). Robert BRESSON was a French movie director too, though about three decades before Luc Besson.
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Peter Olsson
(K=15) - Comment Date 11/12/1999
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The first photo-exhibit I ever saw (our teacher took us to the local museum) was when I was 13 and the photographer was Henri Cartier-Bresson. Obviously, that made some kind of impact. But what I remember mostly is that there were a few pictures I really liked but the majority meant nothing to me. That impression has changed slightly over the last 20 and so years and many of his "frozen moments" (yes, most photography is that...) are among my favorite pictures. BUT, I don't like that many of his portraits. It seems to me that he lacks heart. Some of the pictures look as they are following on a stare-contest. There is often something defensive or submissive in the look of his subjects faces. Strong personalities often do fine, by sometimes avoiding to look into the camera. "More fragile" personalities seem scared of HCB. Where is his empathy?
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John McCormack
(K=30) - Comment Date 11/12/1999
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Chris Yeager writes: I think it takes a lot of brass to do environmental portraiture in 35, and HCB certainly has it...
By "in 35" do you mean in 35mm format (as opposed to MF) or in that focal length in 35mm format? Just curious - as 35mm or 28mm seems to work best for me for environmental (informal) portraits. I'm planning to see the exhibit in Washington tomorrow. Thanks to all for whetting my appetite; I'll report on my impressions later.
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Chris Yeager
(K=139) - Comment Date 11/15/1999
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I meant 35mm format. For portraits I get nervous when the subject occupies less than a quarter of the rectangle, and the head even less. Bresson shows you how its done. If you see the show, could you post a report on the print quality? I'd be curious about that--
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John McCormack
(K=30) - Comment Date 11/15/1999
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Thanks, Chris. I saw the exhibit yesterday. Overall the print quality was very good considering how much they were enlarged - 3' x 4' it seemed in many cases. At viewing distance of 6' - 8' feet they were all quite sharp, especially the shots from the 1950s and later. One of my HCB favorites, the Ghandi portrait, was not included in the show. In sum I felt that I'd seen most of the pictures before and the impact of the exhibit was lessened by this. I think the prints in the books are perhaps better and have just as much impact.
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Alan Gibson
(K=2734) - Comment Date 11/24/1999
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I bumped into another Bresson site here, a much better site. Text in Spanish (umm, I think).
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John Kantor
(K=1664) - Comment Date 11/24/1999
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Since the site is from Brazil, I'd guess Portuguese.
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Mani Sitaraman
(K=312) - Comment Date 11/25/1999
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Almost comprehensible, when you go to Altavista's translation site http://babelfish.altavista.com/ and enter the web page address!
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Mani Sitaraman
(K=312) - Comment Date 11/25/1999
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I should have added, " assuming you do not read Portuguese"
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Mark Tillman
(K=171) - Comment Date 8/5/2000
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http://www.netway.com/~rmjohn95/
The Wista Photo Gallery is an exhibit of documentary photographs taken in Worcester, Massachusetts. The photographs are full frame black & white images. Photographs by Robert M Johnson.
The Wista Photo Gallery
One of the better photo reportage sites we've seen, the work here documents Worcester, Massachusetts in the finest Cartier-Bresson style. Photographer Robert Johnson manages to capture that elusive combination of key moments within careful compositions that in our opinion, represents photography at its very best.
http://www.photogs.com/bwworld/topten.html
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