Henri Cartier-Bresson Quotes - Page 3

The difference between a good picture and a mediocre picture is a question of millimeters - small, small differences - but it’s essential. I didn’t think there is such a big difference between photographers. Very little difference. But it is that little difference that counts, maybe

It's wonderful to be famous as long as you remain unknown.

I'm always amused by the idea that certain people have about technique, which translate into an immoderate taste for the sharpness of the image. It is a passion for detail, for perfection, or do they hope to get closer to reality with this trompe I'oeil? They are, by the way, as far away from the real issues as other generations of photographers were when they obscured their subject in soft-focus effects.

In whatever one does there must be a relationship between the eye and the heart.

Photography has not changed since its origin except in its technical aspects, which for me are not important.

He made me suddenly realize that photographs could reach eternity through the moment.

There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative. Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever.

In order to give meaning to the world, one has to feel oneself involved in what he frames. This attitude requires concentration, a discipline of mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry.

To photograph: it is to put on the same line of sight the head, the eye and the heart.

Memory is very important, the memory of each photo taken, flowing at the same speed as the event.

Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.

Culture shock is often felt sharply at the borders between countries, but sometimes it doesn't hit fully until you've been in a place for a long time.

In photography, you've got to be quick, quick, quick, quick...Like an animal and a prey.

Think about the photo before and after, never during. The secret is to take your time. You mustn't go too fast. The subject must forget about you. Then, however, you must be very quick.

The camera is for us a tool, not a pretty mechanical toy ... people think far too much about techniques and not enough about seeing.

If, in making a portrait, you hope to grasp the interior silence of a willing victim, it's very difficult, but you must somehow position the camera between his shirt and his skin. Whereas with pencil drawing, it is up to the artist to have an interior silence.

Freedom for me is a strict frame, and inside that frame are all the variations possible.

As far as I am concerned, taking photographs is a means of understanding which cannot be separated from other means of visual expression. It is a way of shouting, of freeing oneself, not of proving or asserting one's own originality. It is a way of life.

It is by great economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression.

While we're working, we must be conscious of what we're doing.

I believe that, through the act of living, the discovery of oneself is made concurrently with the discovery of the world around us.

Photography is only intuition, a perpetual interrogation - everything except a stage set.

And no photographs taken with the aid of flashlight either, if only out of respect of the actual light—even when there isn't any of it.

All I care about these days is painting — photography has never been more than a way into painting, a sort of instant drawing.

A photograph is neither taken or seized by force. It offers itself up. It is the photo that takes you. One must not take photos.