Week 8 Papageorge

I would first like to say that I enjoy reading Tod Papageorge's essays (which is saying a lot, because essays can be really boring). They are well-written and well-balanced. I enjoy the breaks that he makes to tell a story (as in the end of Henri Cartier-Bresson: Two Lives) and to narrate (as in the end of Eugene Atget: A Photographer's Photographer). It livens the essay up and makes it 200% more enjoyable to read.

I am going to speak about the essay on Henri Cartier-Bresson. I could actually identify with the author's fascination with Cartier-Bresson's photos. "It was poetry," he says of Cartier-Bresson's 1933 photograph of a boy looking up. While I was not enamored by the same photographs that Cartier-Bresson was, I certainly was by others.

http://beautydelux.com/?attachment_id=14214 Photo by Henri Cartier-Bresson

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 I found myself looking at the above photograph longer than the others. I love it because of the moment it shows. It's a simple, common moment - nothing too extraordinary - but it is perfectly captured. From the position of the man's arm and how we can see his watch to the dog's glance upward at the moment of his companion's kiss, it amazes me that Cartier-Bresson took this photo candidly. I suppose this is a large part of the reason that I am so impressed. I could never capture this moment so perfectly! Just today I was taking photos with my 35mm camera and I pointed it at the man sitting across from me on the train, hoping to get his head and torso as he was reading his newspaper. But before I could focus and set my exposure, he looked up at me and I got uncomfortable and the photo was ruined. It's difficult to frame pictures of people on the street.

Many other photos by Cartier-Bresson are like this one. He was expert at photographing the "decisive moment." I define this not just as the moment that a photographer decides to press the shutter (although that inherently is also part of it), but also as the moment where things come together with their maximum amount of static/tension.

Derrière la gare Saint-Lazare, Paris, France, 1932, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos, courtesy Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson

 Like a social interaction between two people where the photographer captures the moment that both subjects react to something, or the instant before a man jumps into a ambiguous depth of water. I wonder if Cartier-Bresson often waited a long time with his camera in position until that moment came. He must have.

I can begin to comprehend how Cartier-Bresson came to find the things and people - situations, so to speak - that he ended up photographing. He walked everywhere and traveled the world, using his camera as an extension of his eyes. I imagine that he also practiced his Buddhism and entered a concentrative zen state while photographing. But what I can't fully explain is how he was able to photograph so perfectly the split-second moment that he so often did. And how he was able to make himself so invisible while doing it.

I noticed some large similarities between Cartier-Bresson's and Papageorge's work - namely, their subject matter. This made sense after reading that Papageorge was inspired to begin photography as a career by looking at one of Cartier-Bresson's pictures. I scarcely see any landscape, geometric, or abstract work by either of them. It is mostly people; street photography. I am usually not drawn to this genre, but after looking at both of their photographs I was quite amazed.