It is no coincidence that Henri Cartier-Bresson preferred a 50mm lens on his Leica 35mm rangefinder camera. His special ability was to use a 50mm lens but allow the photo to “breathe” almost as if shot with a 35mm. HCB just seemed to know how to frame so that it looks wider than it should. […]
The New York Times’ Lens Blog just published a beautiful two-part series with journalist and filmmaker Sheila Turner-Seed interviewing Henri Cartier-Bresson in his Paris studio in 1971. The interview was only discovered in 2011. Not much to add. You have to read the whole thing for yourself. Straight-forward answers of a blessed photographer who never […]
This is not only for our French friends. Yes, this documentary on Henri Cartier-Bresson is in French. It’s as visually remarkable as surprising in many aspects. The documentary dates back to 1976, four years after HCB gave up photography. But he was willing to once again pick up his Leica (actually two Leicas each with […]
By RONN ALDAMAN Many people say today’s digital imaging sensors deliver quality comparable to film. Two of today’s questions on many a photographer’s mind are: 1) The difference between digital and film photography, and; 2) Would Henri Cartier-Bresson have used a digital camera today? Of course, we will never know. The master died in 2004, […]
Street photography and shyness, they don’t match, do they. Street photography requires an outgoing personality, eager to not mind what passersby think, not shying away from even confronting people. People can get upset if not aggressive when they see a stranger’s camera pointed at them. Some photographers just don’t care. Others are careful enough to […]
John Berger, the politically committed critic, novelist, screenwriter, lyricist, dramatist, essyist, activist and, above all, photographer, John Berger is dead. He passed away on January 1 in Paris after a long illness, a few weeks after his 90th birthday. As photographers we owe many things to John Berger, above all to his equally influential and […]
We all face difficult times in life. It can be a sudden tragic event disrupting our daily routine, or for years we lead a life that just seems wrong and unsatisfying, yet we don’t find ways to break out, to shake off our lethargy and live the life that reflects our self. Photography is an […]
Don’t know about you, but what’s nicer than chilling out to a good movie after a hard day’s work. The Internet turns our computers into phenomenal movie libraries with access to every movie imaginable, such as Amazon’s Instant Video. Well you know the name of the game… While everyone has his or her favorite genre, […]
The photography world is in hyperactivity. It’s biennial Photokina time, lots of exciting announcements, just to mention the-wait-is-over Canon 7D Mark II (Amazon / B&H Photo / Adorama), world’s probably top APS-C camera. Photography sites and forums are flooded with enthusiasm, exasperation and bad blood, so let’s swim a bit against the tide of nonstop […]
Photography, like life itself, changed radically over the past few decades. The photography of city life especially — these days simply called “street photography” — has developed into an own new genre like the new urban scenery itself. Now a book titled The World Atlas of Street Photography showcases the work of 100 contemporary photographers, […]
All a photographer needs are a camera and a lens. Take Henri Cartier-Bresson, he was a one lens shooter. On rare occasions he used a 35mm, otherwise all the way through the trusted 50mm. Times have changed, everyone’s a photographer today, but success in photography still doesn’t depend on bags full of gear and stuff. […]
It’s one of those topics that’s discussed to death. More cliché than truly understood, wise men throw it in casually when talking the essence of street photography. Henri Cartier-Bresson’s “decisive moment”, considered to be the key element of this pioneer of modern photojournalism, influences photographers of all kinds to this day. The world is full […]
“If your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” Right, it’s the modern photojournalist’s golden mantra. It’s the leitmotiv of Robert Capa, one of the most influential photographers of all time who marks his 100th birthday on October 22. The late Robert Capa’s photographs of conflict — from the beaches of Normandy and the […]
These are some great inspiring time witnesses and documents: long forgotten videos with Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel interviewing some of the greats of American photography. Recorded in 1981, the series portrays the iconic photographers Arnold Newman, Elliott Erwitt, Garry Winogrand, Horst P. Horst, Harry Callahan, Frederick Sommer, Duane Michals, Cornell Capa, Burk Uzzle and Joel Meyerowitz. Especially […]
Lee Miller, one of the most perceptive photographers of the 20th century, epitomizes freedom, and I mean freedom of choice in every respect. She always did what she wanted to do. Whether she was shooting the atrocities of World War II or the latest collections from Paris, her eye was unflinching. A new book, Lee […]
Don’t look like a photographer and get rid of the tension, says photographer John Free who has some strong and rather philosophical thoughts on what makes a good photographer. “Be able to effectively react to a particular instant in a situation that you wanna react to,” he says. Henri Cartier-Bresson might have called this the […]
German magazine Spiegel has an excellent interview with photographer Roger Ballen, a black-and-white film photographer for nearly 50 years who believes that he’s part of the last generation that will grow up with this media. Black and white, says Balen, is a very minimalist art form and unlike color photographs does not pretend to mimic […]
By B. D. COLEN One of the few inviolate rules I force upon my documentary photo students is that they may not use Photoshop or other processing software to manipulate images beyond making the normal adjustments that would be made in a traditional darkroom — no adding anything to, or subtracting it from the image; […]
The story usually goes like this: you buy a new camera, and then you decide on the optics. That doesn’t make a lot of sense, really. Shouldn’t it be the other way round. Aren’t the optics at the heart and soul of an image? Sensor and camera are second priority. Rather decide first which lens(es) […]
How many photographs can you look at more than once? Not many, not many. Henri Cartier-Bresson (The following is a free interpretation of Forbes’ excellent Leica M Monochrom review by David Foster.) Although the technical brilliance of modern digital cameras is undeniable, there’s also something about the ease with which pictures can be taken that […]
The pursuit of paid photography is one of the few vocations left that are ideal for career changers and newcomers alike. Who needs a degree when great photos can do the talking! But the world is flooded with images and it becomes more and more difficult to stand out from the crowd. There are just […]
Leica again. Somehow I missed this story by Deutsche Welle published last October. The German newswire spoke to Leica Camera CEO Alfred Schopf about the company’s comeback. You learn about some of its unbelievable management mistakes in the 70s, its first digital camera and the move back to Wetzler. An interesting short read on the […]
Great piece by Jack Forster of Forbes — Retro Rocket: Cameras, Technology Backlash and the Olympus OM-D EM-5. Everything old is new again, writes Forster. Gadget lovers seem to swing back and forth between wanting all the charm and style of old school design — such as rangefinder cameras. Especially camera design these days is […]
Mahathma Gandhi, world’s most familiar symbol of peace and founding father of India, and Henri Cartier-Bresson, father of street photography and the modern photo reportage, they both shared a tragic moment in history: Henri Cartier-Bresson was one of the last persons to meet Gandhi while he was alive. It was a very special meeting. Cartier-Bresson […]
Which one single lens would you take to the proverbial island? Say you have to travel, want to go compact and have to make a decision. One lens. To cover your basic needs. Which one would it be? Which one fits your style best and poses the least possible compromise? In other words, if the […]
Lovely piece in the New York Times on the latest fad in Hollywood: Click if You Can Afford It. You won’t read it in the Technology, but Fashion & Style section, as the article is about Leica cameras favored by celebrities: The latest status symbol in Hollywood, it seems, is not the 8 p.m. reservation […]
+++ As you all know, Sony updated the stellar RX1 with the RX1R lacking an anti-aliasing filter, something that seems very fashionable at present. Currently for the same price as the predecessor with AA filter, the newer model should deliver superior detail resolution, but potentially at the expense of increase moiré patterning in areas of […]
Everyone is a photographer these days, everyone has a camera. There’s hardly anything left in the world that doesn’t yet exist as a photographed clone. The world is full of little HCBs and countless casual shooters aiming their camera at everything — even at the most private or meaningless stuff. It is estimated that last […]
By HANK FAN Consider this list of the most famous photographers in history: Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Edward Steichen, Ansel Adams, Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, William Eggleston. I know I missed quite a few. Talent aside, do you know what they all had in common? They all came from wealthy families. This is a theme […]
Am not saying I’m a good photographer. Just average. Newer cameras — and older ones for that — easily surpass my and many photographers’ capabilities. BTW, what’s about to follow is pure heresy for some, asking that I’m hanged, drawn and quartered. Still, in dubio pro reo… There are the basic rules though no one […]
