I have never seen an actual photograph made by H.C-B but I've seen museum and gallery examples of gelatin-silvers credited to him. The idea of sublime composition, exposure, and timing as outcomes of H.C-B's camera-work is basically a crock. H.C-B never really knew what he had until somebody pushed a pile of contact sheets under his nose. It is no hugely clever thing to discover a few nice results among thousands and thousands (and thousands) of discards.
The real secret to H.C-B's output is obsessive and brutal shooting backed up by dedicated darkroom workers. I think H.C-B's fame rests on an almost psychopathic capacity for self promotion, and ability to fool naive commentators like Beaumont Newhall et al, and to seduce an uncritical fan-club who fail to realise virtually everything he said about himself and his work should be taken with a grain of salt.
Of the pictures credited to H.C-B I should have liked to have done "Bargeman on the Seine River, 1957". And I wish (sadly unfulfilled) that I had the talent to do it by conscious creativity rather than by chance and in passing.
