Henri Cartier-Bresson quotes

Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer, considered a pioneer of modern photojournalism. His concept of the “decisive moment” shaped the way photographers capture everyday life. He is remembered as one of the most influential visual storytellers of the 20th century. Here are 44 of his quotes:

The photograph itself doesn't interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality. (Henri Cartier-Bresson)
To photograph is to hold one's breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It's at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy. View quote
Henri Cartier-Bresson
We photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth can make them come back again. We cannot develop and print a memory. View quote
Henri Cartier-Bresson
In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little, human detail can become a Leitmotiv. View quote
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst. View quote
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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. View quote
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation. View quote
Henri Cartier-Bresson
The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box. View quote
Henri Cartier-Bresson
I am a visual man. I watch, watch, watch. I understand things through my eyes. View quote
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? ­. View quote
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Sharpness is a bourgeois concept. (Henri Cartier-Bresson)
For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity. View quote
Henri Cartier-Bresson
To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event. View quote
Henri Cartier-Bresson
It is through living that we discover ourselves, at the same time as we discover the world around us. View quote
Henri Cartier-Bresson
To photograph: it is to put on the same line of sight the head, the eye and the heart. View quote
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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. View quote
Henri Cartier-Bresson
The most difficult thing for me is a portrait. You have to try and put your camera between the skin of a person and his shirt. View quote
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Actually, I'm not all that interested in the subject of photography. Once the picture is in the box, I'm not all that interested in what happens next. Hunters, after all, aren't cooks. View quote
Henri Cartier-Bresson
You have to look, and looking is so difficult. We are used to thinking. We reflect all the time, well or not, but people are not taught how to look. It takes a very long time. View quote
Henri Cartier-Bresson
For me, the great myth is the Greek myth of Antaeus, who had to touch Earth to regain his strength. I know I must always keep in contact with the concrete, concrete reality, the small incident and the small, specific truth, which might have wide reverberations. View quote
Henri Cartier-Bresson
But with photography as with drawing or painting, once it is done I want to know whether it holds together or not. That is the real critique. I couldn't care less if the person to whom I show what I do likes it or not - it takes all sorts to make a world and all that. To criticize is to put oneself in someone else's shoes and try to figure out what they wanted to do. Only the "why” of things is important to me. (Henri Cartier-Bresson)
Photography has never been a problem for me, [what is important] is looking, the way of looking, of questioning with your eyes: I don't think; I am impulsive, it is /looking/ that's important, not photography. Now, since I have started drawing, I've merely switched tools, but it is still looking that's important. To look the right way, one should learn to become a deaf-mute. View quote
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Anybody can take photographs. I have seen in the Herald Tribune some taken by a monkey that managed, with a Polaroid camera, as well as some camera owners. It is precisely because our profession is open to everyone that it remains, in spite of its fascinating ease, extremely difficult. View quote
Henri Cartier-Bresson
When you use a camera, your visual concentration is intense, as it is when you draw. But if you overshoot, your contact sheet is likely to become a jumble of peelings. You need a lot of sand to discover a nugget. Shooting is a play between pickpocketing and tightrope walking; an endless play, fraught with huge tension. View quote
Henri Cartier-Bresson
If I am asked about the photographer's role in our times, the power of the image and so on, I do not want to launch into explanations. I only know that people who know how to look are as rare as those who know how to listen. View quote
Henri Cartier-Bresson