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| Sample picture of Medieval Architecture |
Dan Leers, a Lawrence graduate, gives a talk about his career path today at Lawrence University. He has been changing his interests from medieval era architecture to Greek & roman coins to photo journalism and ended at Museum of Modern Art. One person Leers believes has inspired him into the photojournalism is
Henri Cartier-Bresson. Henri was a French photographer who had been actively searching and capturing a magic moment in time and space around the world. Below are couple of pictures that Henri captured.
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| Henri Cartier-Bresson and his favorite camera |
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| A silver Roman coin of Tiberius |
The technique Henri used to take the pictures is called
street photography. Nobody knew at a time that their pictures were taken. They presented their natural habitat. there was no pose, no act, just a reality.
As we can see in any of these pictures, the people were not at all aware of the present of the camera. They act as they feel and we can feel what they feel. It is inspiring to something real once a while in photos these days. In the modern society, every picture we see on the
magazine, Internet and billboard, are acted and retouched. I think these pictures by Henri is just brilliant. I am inspired by his work and hope that one day I can have a good collection like that too.
Byte,
ReplyDeleteI admire the fact that you were inspired by Henri's candid photography. However, you have to keep in mind that Henri captured these "reality" moments in the past, when the invasion of privacy was not such a big issue. In contrast, if we were to take similar pictures of people today, without their consent, it would probably be considered illegal! For instance, if you read my post, I experienced such an incident today at the mall. I was attempting to capture "reality," by taking candid pictures of people around me. Unfortunately, I was forced to stop by authority, as they told me it was forbidden to take photographs in public areas. Nonetheless, I am still a fan of candid photography, since it represents reality, authenticity and certainty!
Well I would have to agree with Anam. Privacy is such a major deal now a days, as we all contributed to discussing last week. Byte I do see what you see in Henri's photos as well. I see a little piece of joy in each of his snap shots. I, myself do admire his work! Personally I feel like the black and white tones that he picks up with his exposures really brings out the definition in the photographs. It would be amazing if photographers could deliver this style of work today. Unfortunately, we live in a world now where our privacy is a must! Blame stalkers the government for that!
ReplyDeleteChanging times, changing technologies contribute to the sense that HCB's photographs are more real than what we see today. Film is not as easily manipulated and we are not distracted by eye-popping colors and 21st century overly slick camera angles. Human existence has changed too. Travelers like HCB were rare since travel was difficult.Today, tourists are swarming and every picture snapped in non-native countries looks like so much image-poaching...Aren't people much more image-savvy today no matter where?
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