A leading photographer of the 20th century - Henri Cartier-Bresson

 

About the Artist – Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908 ~ 2004)

In 1952, Henri Cartier-Bresson compiled a selection of his photographs into a book titled The Decisive Moment. This luxurious photo book, with cover design by Henri Matisse himself, has since become a classic of photography. Today, The Decisive Moment is regarded as a definitive example of candid photography captured with a small-format camera. The phrase “decisive moment” is not only the title of the book but has also become a key concept in the aesthetics of candid photography.

Unlike many photographers who used a range of equipment—from small to medium and large-format cameras and various other photographic gear—Cartier-Bresson relied solely on the small-format camera throughout his life. He developed an aesthetic grounded in the characteristics of this type of camera. His photo book is considered almost sacred in the world of candid photography, not only because of his expert use of the small camera but also due to his unique approach to documentary photography. At a time when most photographers merely carried out assignments from editors at newspapers or magazines, he insisted on capturing only those images that were personally meaningful to him. His photographic achievements represent the fulfillment of a historical mission in the evolution of photography: following the decline of large-format cameras after World War I and the rise of the candid style enabled by small cameras, Cartier-Bresson brought this new photographic era to its full expression.

He actively embraced the limitations of his medium, moving beyond the conventional approach of observing subjects from the outside. Instead, he sought to intuitively grasp the vital essence of his subjects by immersing himself within them. He viewed himself and the world around him as sharing an inner, vital unity. What distinguished his photographic perspective was his understanding of the essence of his subjects. For Cartier-Bresson, the ultimate reality of all subjects was vitality. He believed that behind the countless changes in nature, there is no unchanging essence; instead, reality itself is constant creation and transformation. This view sees the fundamental substance of the world not as material or conceptual, but as a spiritual consciousness.

In this way, his approach differed from the movements of the 1920s that sought to express essence through visual design principles or the objectivists who tried to analyze subjects through detached, optical precision. For him, vitality was an ongoing, pulsating continuity—essentially the flow of consciousness. Since vitality is a spiritual awareness, all phenomena could be understood as processes in the stream of consciousness. Thus, his pursuit of essence through intuition meant immersing himself in this flow and achieving a sympathetic unity with it. His subjects were not interpreted through social or moral lenses, but instead as expressions of pure life energy. As a result, his documentary photographs rarely exhibit any overt social commentary or moral tone.

His documentary photography broke the common practice of focusing on notable public events or dramatic incidents. Instead, he captured ordinary, everyday scenes. A well-known example is from 1938, when he went to cover the coronation of King George VI in England: rather than photographing the ceremonial highlights, he documented the common people who had come to watch. He deliberately avoided any subject that made him feel even slightly psychologically burdened, choosing only those he could approach with ease and comfort. He clicked the shutter only when he encountered subjects that felt cozy, pleasant, and natural. Consequently, his photos contain no heightened emotions or dramatic tension—only consistently mundane, everyday content.

Throughout his life, he traveled the world to take photographs, yet his images rarely reflect the ethnic or regional characteristics of the countries he visited. Regardless of time or place, his work consistently depicts the ordinary situations in which people live. This is one of the defining features of Cartier-Bresson’s photographic aesthetic. In his photographs, the subject was always the everyday situation itself. His approach did not separate the self from the subject; rather, as mentioned earlier, he immersed himself into daily life, aiming to grasp a life-centered reality through direct experience. This is akin to a fish submerged in a tank, sensing the depth of the water with its whole body—an effort to feel the emotional texture of life in everyday surroundings. The emotions captured in this way were simple, modest pleasures and the subtle truths of life found in ordinariness.

His candid photography with a small-format camera vividly captured these everyday moments. Candid photography, by definition, refers to capturing natural, unposed scenes without the subject being aware. However, in Cartier-Bresson’s case, these “natural” scenes were not merely fleeting motions but manifestations of the ongoing flow of consciousness—the vitality of life. Thus, the movements of the people in his photos were not simply actions, but expressions of that larger life flow. This is a key point that distinguishes him from other photographers.

Strictly speaking, the “decisive moment” refers to the moment when the flow of consciousness achieves a unified, complete expression. In his photos, each person’s movement is a vital continuation of life, and the precise moment when all elements align in space and time is the decisive moment. His goal in approaching his subjects was to experience a vital harmony within this space-time alignment. This is what he meant by an intuitive grasp of vitality through immersion into the subject’s inner world.

 

A Collection of Henri Cartier-Bresson Photographs (Source: Google Images)