Cartier-Bresson et Geometrie

'Frist of all, the photographer(Cartier-Bresson) looks for a background that seems to him to have an interesting form. Sometimes it is a wall running parallel to the forground of the image, or a space proprotional to the graphic lines already supplied. Then he waits for one or more living, moving creatures - children, a man, a dog - to take their place within this constellation of forms, in what he calls a simultaneous coalition. Thus one element of the picture's geometry is premeditated, while the other - in fact, the more important element - comes about by sheer chance. Contrary to what one might expet, then, Cartier-Bresson's compositions have not been carefully thought out in advance, but are seized instantaneously as a result of an intuitive awareness.'  

                                                        Peter Galassi, a curator of the photography department at MoMA







'If you start cutting or cropping a good photograph, it means death to the geometically correct interplay of proprotions.'
                                                          Henry Cartier-Bresson, <The Decisive Moment >




찍은 사진을 잘라내지 않고, 35mm 필름에 찍힌 그래도 인화했던 까르티에 브레송의 철학을 엿볼 수 있는 말이다. 그리고 그의 사진집에서 왜 선정되었을지 이해가 안가던 그런 사진들이 다소 이해가가는 부분이다. 특히나 사진기 자체가 그의 분신처럼 되지 않는 이상 기술적으로 이런 것들을 필요한 때에 기록한다는 것은 더욱 힘든 일이라 생각한다.


Let there be joie de vivre!