Bagues Cartier Quotes

A photographer must always work with the greatest respect for his subject and in terms of his own point of view. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

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

And no photographs taken with the aid of flash light, either, if only out of respect for the actual light - even when there isn't any of it. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

Rene Char wrote somewhere, apropos poetry, that there are those who create and those who discover; they are too completely different worlds. Photograph also has two sides to it and thank goodness, I am only intersted in those who discover; I feel a certain solidarity with those who set out in a spirit of discovery; I think there is much more risk invovled in this than in trying to create images; and in the end, reality is more important. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

I don't like gimmicky pictures; I've always hated them. I like pictures that are very clear and clean, whether you're a great street photographer - somebody like Friedlander or Winogrand or Cartier-Bresson - or whether you're a portraitist, like Irving Penn. ~ Mary Ellen Mark

The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props. Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece on the back of a deli menu would not surprise me. Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece with a silver Cartier fountain pen on an antique writing table in an airy SoHo loft would seriously surprise me. ~ Hugh MacLeod

I'm always amused by the idea that certain people have about technique, which translate into an immoderate taste for the sharpness of the image. It is a passion for detail, for perfection, or do they hope to get closer to reality with this trompe I'oeil? They are, by the way, as far away from the real issues as other generations of photographers were when they obscured their subject in soft-focus effects. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

And what we called photojournalism, the photos seen in places like Life magazine, didn't interest me either. They were just not good-there was no art there. The first person who I respected immensely was Henri Cartier-Bresson. I still do. ~ William Eggleston

The adventurer in me felt obliged to testify with a quicker instrument than a brush to the scars of the world. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

Pictures should never be posed. They are 'revealed' so must be accepted as they are. Left alone. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

When Cartier-Bresson goes to China, he shows that there are people in China, and that they are Chinese. ~ Susan Sontag

The world is being created every minute, and the world is falling to pieces every minute ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

Photography is nothing-it's life that interests me. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

Photography is simultaneously and instantaneously the recognition of a fact and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that express and signify that fact ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

The photographic moment for Cartier-Bresson is an instant, a fraction of a second, and he stalks that instant as though it were a wild animal. The photographic moment for Strand is a biographical or historic moment, whose duration is ideally measured not by seconds but by its relation to a lifetime. Strand does not pursue an instant, but encourages a moment to arise as one might encourage a story to be told. ~ John Berger

Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

Reality offers us such wealth that we must cut some of it out on the spot, simplify. The question is, do we always cut out what we should? ­ ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

Unwrapping the paper carefully so it doesn't tear, I find a beautiful red leather box. Cartier. It's familiar, thanks to my second-chance earrings and my watch. Cautiously, I open the box to discover a delicate charm bracelet of silver or platinum or white gold - I don't know, but it's absolutely enchanting. Attached to it are several charms: the Eiffel Tower; a London black cab; a helicopter - Charlie Tango; a glider - the soaring, a catamaran - The Grace; a bed; and an ice cream cone? I look up at him, bemused. "Vanilla?" He shrugs apologetically( ... ) ~ E.L. James

The personality and style of a photographer usually limits the type of subject with which he deals best. For example Cartier-Bresson is very interested in people and in travel; these things plus his precise feeling for geometrical relationships determine the type of pictures he takes best. What is of value is that a particular photographer sees the subject differently. A good picture must be a completely individual expression which intrigues the viewer and forces him to think. ~ Alexey Brodovitch

Thinking should be done beforehand and afterwards - never while actually taking a photograph. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

While photography to Cartier-Bresson is constantly an intuitive process, it is never purely instinctive. It is founded on continuous intellection, on ceaseless consideration during all moments previous to, or preparatory for, the pressing. It does not only operate in the blinding flash of a moment seized; it works all the time. The snatched picture merely cuts across the vein of observable incident or accident which is always beating, whether or not the fingers actually press. ~ Lincoln Kirstein

The Photography is a chopper which in the eternity seizes the moment which dazzled it. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

Sharpness is a bourgeois concept ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

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

All brands, whether high-ticket luxury ones such as Cartier or Rolls-Royce or 'masstige' ones with luxe-y overtones but altogether more affordable, all want to grow. Even brands that may have started in a modestly niche design and lifestyle fashion can find themselves under pressure to go global or to sell out at the top. ~ Peter York

The photograph itself doesn't interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

Thinking should be done before and after, not during photographing. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

I am neither an economist nor a photographer of monuments, and I am not much of a journalist either. What I am trying to do more than anything else is to observe life. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

To take photographs is to hold one's breath when all faculties converge in the face of fleeing reality. It is at that moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.
To take photographs means to recognize - simultaneously and within a fraction of a second - both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning. It is putting one's head, one's eye, and one's heart on the same axis. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

If, in making a portrait, you hope to grasp the interior silence of a willing victim, it's very difficult, but you must somehow position the camera between his shirt and his skin. Whereas with pencil drawing, it is up to the artist to have an interior silence. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

I love watches. I have a Hublot, a Breitling, and a Cartier. Different accessories that I match together just to be comfortable and casual. ~ Chandler Parsons

For the world is movement, and you cannot be stationary in your attitude toward something that is moving. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

We must respect the atmosphere which surrounds the human being ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

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

Some photographs are like a Chekhov short story or a Maupassant story. They're quick things and there's a whole world in them. But one is unconscious of it while shooting. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

Time runs and flows and only our death succeeds in catching up with it. Photography is a blade which, in eternity, impales the dazzling moment. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little human detail can become a Leitmotiv. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

All I care about these days is painting - photography has never been more than a way into painting, a sort of instant drawing. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

Your fitsy 10,000 photographs are your worst. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

He made me suddenly realize that photographs could reach eternity through the moment. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

What reinforces the content of a photograph is the sense of rhythm - the relationship between shapes and values. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson