HCB Appreciation

[Alan Edward Klein]

I am in my mid 40's but somehow I still remember how "important" photography used to be in every day culture.

I remember my parents dressing me up to get on Sunday to the local photographer studio, this was already a "sacred" and important thing, more than the snapshots of today.

I also remember toying with the film camera in our family holidays and my parents telling me not to "waste" photos without subjects because film costs, imagine saying that to a modern kid that can literally take hundreds of photos in less than 2 minutes.
And of course I remember the anticipation of printing them and then filling up photo albums with memories (although I never learn myself how to print).

Perhaps this is why the old school photography is that good. Because the early and enthusiastic practitioners loved it and the world loved looking at photographs too.

You mentioned LIFE magazine. It never tried to pretend it is an art photography magazine but looking at these photos by today's standards they are so damn good. Even when they did not intend to produce art photography they did produce very nice, honest, and tender photos!
The culture of today is very different. The plurality of the photos everywhere is overwhelming. The connection with time and memory seems to fade. Who looks at photos anymore? Who buys Photo Books? Most take photos and keep them in their folders for never to be viewed again. Even the view has changed, it is instantaneous, you consume them, and then it is gone. While photography needs to be looked at again and again, and come back to them, like a good poem.

You are right about what you wrote. And we all need to reassess I think what photography means to us nowadays.

When you look at a picture of someone you love, you fall in love all over again.

 

[Arthurwg]

That would have been an SLR when Blow Up came out in 1966.
DSLRs....1999

Of course you are correct. My mistake, probably because I am old enough to remember the 1970s.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

For all you Sontag haters out there I suggest you have a look at the actual text of "Against Interpretation", which is available for free on-line. Essentially, her argument was (1966) that art should be viewed as a "presentation," rather than a "representation" that requires further explanation and explication. This comes up in the context of HCB as a counter to the idea that his pictures require a critique of their "content."

Put another way, the point of the aesthetic experience is a brief flash of recognition.

She quotes Oscar Wilde: "It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The mystery of the world is visible."

If you have to explain a photograph, it failed.

 

[warden]

If you have to explain a photograph, it failed.

Nah.

 

[Elmarc]

IIRC (and I think I do), this is one photo that HCB did not physically take. I believe that he asked his assistant to climb a pole to get the shot with his camera. Clearly, HCB claimed it as his, presumably because he directed the photo even though he did not personally trip the shutter.

 

[0x001688936CA08]

If you need an art degree to appreciate a photograph, then it's not a very good picture.

If you need an engineering degree to appreciate a bridge, then it's not a very good bridge.

 

[snusmumriken]

If you need an art degree to appreciate a photograph, then it's not a very good picture.

That’s not the issue under discussion. The issue is rather whether those with an art degree (or better credentials), but no experience as photographers, have anything valid to say.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

IIRC (and I think I do), this is one photo that HCB did not physically take. I believe that he asked his assistant to climb a pole to get the shot with his camera. Clearly, HCB claimed it as his, presumably because he directed the photo even though he did not personally trip the shutter.

Interesting. On the Magnum website, it is clearly attributed to HCB.

https://www.magnumphotos.com/newsroom/religion/henri-cartier-bresson-india-death-gandhi/

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Street Photographer in the Old City, Delhi, India, 1966

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Refugee camp, Kurukshetra, Punjab, 1947

 

[Elmarc]

Interesting. On the Magnum website, it is clearly attributed to HCB.

https://www.magnumphotos.com/newsroom/religion/henri-cartier-bresson-india-death-gandhi/

Found it!
38:00 in.
Quite a comic moment in fact..

 

[koraks]

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Refugee camp, Kurukshetra, Punjab, 1947

He must have used stand development; I think we should revise our past discussions on that topic with this new information.

 

[cliveh]

IIRC (and I think I do), this is one photo that HCB did not physically take. I believe that he asked his assistant to climb a pole to get the shot with his camera. Clearly, HCB claimed it as his, presumably because he directed the photo even though he did not personally trip the shutter.

HCB didn't have an assistant, he worked alone.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

HCB didn't have an assistant, he worked alone.

Listen to the excerpt @Elmarc pointed to in the interview. HCB says it was "a friend" who took the photo. There wasn't enough room on the pole for two people, so HCB handed this other photographer his camera so he could take the photo.

I wrote "he", but since Margaret Bourke-White was also in India for Gandhi's funeral, maybe it was her .

 

[cliveh]

Listen to the excerpt @Elmarc pointed to in the interview. HCB says it was "a friend" who took the photo. There wasn't enough room on the pole for two people, so HCB handed this other photographer his camera so he could take the photo.

I wrote "he", but since Margaret Bourke-White was also in India for Ghandi's funeral, maybe it was her .

yes, but he wasn't his assistant. An assistant implies he works like a fashion photographer with lots of people. Also the photograph is not that good.

 

[Elmarc]

HCB didn't have an assistant, he worked alone.

Not always




I also remember reading an article written by his 'assistant' in India who recalled how HCB bulk rolled his cameras every night. I will try to find it.

 

[Elmarc]

“My Time With Henri Cartier-Bresson” by Ishu Patel - ERIC KIM ₿

Eric's Note: This original article was published on Ishu Patel's site and re-published here with permission. It details Ishu Patel's time with Henri Cartier-Bresson and gets some insightful views into his life and photography. AFTER GRADUATING IN 1963 from the Faculty of Fine Arts, University...

erickimphotography.com

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Also the photograph is not that good.

I beg to disagree. The photograph is excellent, in that it documents perfectly what happened that day, and more: the sea of people, the few perilously clinging to the lone tree just to get a better glimpse of the funeral cortege approaching the cremation grounds... Hard to get a better sense of how much Gandhi meant to these people.

It may not be a great composition, but it's a great document, which makes it a good photograph.

 

[cliveh]

Not always




I also remember reading an article written by his 'assistant' in India who recalled how HCB bulk rolled his cameras every night. I will try to find it.

I have also read this account and would not describe him as an assistant, but someone who travelled with him.

 

[snusmumriken]

For all you Sontag haters out there I suggest you have a look at the actual text of "Against Interpretation", which is available for free on-line. Essentially, her argument was (1966) that art should be viewed as a "presentation," rather than a "representation" that requires further explanation and explication. This comes up in the context of HCB as a counter to the idea that his pictures require a critique of their "content."

Put another way, the point of the aesthetic experience is a brief flash of recognition.

She quotes Oscar Wilde: "It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The mystery of the world is visible."

I did read it at your suggestion. Thanks for pointing out that it was available online. It's interesting that she mentions James Joyce, whose work HCB admired, as one example of an author around whose works "thick encrustations of interpretation have taken hold". I suppose she must have read some Joyce, but I'd declare that it is impossible to read Finnegan's Wake or even Ulysses, without trying to interpret what the heck is going on. At face value FW is nonsense, but with a vague sense that it might mean something. (Terrific, all the same, once you get the idea.)

I assume you yourself are extending Sontag's overall thesis to HCB, as she doesn't mention him in that essay, and she doesn't use the word 'presentation'. What she argues for is greater critical interest in 'form' rather than 'content'. She concludes, "The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means." That really won't wash with the example we discussed in our Very Long Thread about one HCB photo. In the course of that thread, @Alex Benjamin unearthed the significance - arguably the meaning - of that otherwise puzzling photo.

So I would say that while HCB's photos typically have a visual beauty without any interpretation of their content (did anyone here say they required interpretation?), interpretation is not unreasonable. As @Don_ih noted perviously, time has passed and we necessarily look at HCB's photos with the eyes of a later generation. One should know, for example, that Russia was communist at the time of his visit, and that his timetable there was strictly orchestrated by the authorities. Old geezers like me take that for granted, but what about younger viewers? Furthermore, HCB considered himself a Surrealist - he says so in one of the interviews. The Surrealists as a bunch didn't agree about an awful lot, but the idea that their work should be freely open to thought association seems to have been common. That rather invites analysis, doesn't it?

Finally, I don't know what Oscar Wilde meant, although characteristically it sounds very clever. If there is a mystery, visible or otherwise, it is reasonable to study and explore it. Analysis doesn't spoil a work of art. It either adds to our understanding, or it doesn't. And it's not compulsory reading.

 

[nikos79]

Gary Winogrand had said that a good photo is a battle between form and content. In the very best photos one of the two tends to become autonomous but the other one doesn't let it. This battle is what creates tension and moves the viewer. I have never come to a better definition of a good photo.

And this is against any interpretation as SS said (actually Gary Winogrand referred to his students to this particular article of SS many times). You cannot explain it usually in words. It is against interpretation (how much I like this article!)

There is an anecdotal story between my teacher in Greece and Gary Winogrand in the 80s in Maine where he taught. One of his pictures was liked by his classmates, but Winogrand rejected it. The other pupils that liked the photo perplexed asked why. And he gave an incredible response: "Plato will understand." (meaning that some day in the future when his judgement will mature he also will)

 

[Alex Benjamin]

I did read it at your suggestion. Thanks for pointing out that it was available online. It's interesting that she mentions James Joyce, whose work HCB admired, as one example of an author around whose works "thick encrustations of interpretation have taken hold". I suppose she must have read some Joyce, but I'd declare that it is impossible to read Finnegan's Wake or even Ulysses, without trying to interpret what the heck is going on. At face value FW is nonsense, but with a vague sense that it might mean something. (Terrific, all the same, once you get the idea.)

I assume you yourself are extending Sontag's overall thesis to HCB, as she doesn't mention him in that essay, and she doesn't use the word 'presentation'. What she argues for is greater critical interest in 'form' rather than 'content'. She concludes, "The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means." That really won't wash with the example we discussed in our Very Long Thread about one HCB photo. In the course of that thread, @Alex Benjamin unearthed the significance - arguably the meaning - of that otherwise puzzling photo.

So I would say that while HCB's photos typically have a visual beauty without any interpretation of their content (did anyone here say they required interpretation?), interpretation is not unreasonable. As @Don_ih noted perviously, time has passed and we necessarily look at HCB's photos with the eyes of a later generation. One should know, for example, that Russia was communist at the time of his visit, and that his timetable there was strictly orchestrated by the authorities. Old geezers like me take that for granted, but what about younger viewers? Furthermore, HCB considered himself a Surrealist - he says so in one of the interviews. The Surrealists as a bunch didn't agree about an awful lot, but the idea that their work should be freely open to thought association seems to have been common. That rather invites analysis, doesn't it?

Finally, I don't know what Oscar Wilde meant, although characteristically it sounds very clever. If there is a mystery, visible or otherwise, it is reasonable to study and explore it. Analysis doesn't spoil a work of art. It either adds to our understanding, or it doesn't. And it's not compulsory reading.

Great post, Jonathan.

Reminded me that somehwere lost in my bookshelves I have a book about understanding James Joyce's Ulysses which is about twice as thick as James Joyce's Ulysses.

 

[nikos79]

Great post, Jonathan.

Reminded me that somehwere lost in my bookshelves I have a book about understanding James Joyce's Ulysses which is about twice as thick as James Joyce's Ulysses.

HCB has also referred to Ulysses many times when asked about what a good photography is (the famous 'yes', 'yes', 'yes' he said in an interview)

 

[nikos79]

Finally, I don't know what Oscar Wilde meant, although characteristically it sounds very clever. If there is a mystery, visible or otherwise, it is reasonable to study and explore it. Analysis doesn't spoil a work of art. It either adds to our understanding, or it doesn't. And it's not compulsory reading.

Oscar Wilde said something very wise:
“All art is quite useless.”

 

[Elmarc]

I have also read this account and would not describe him as an assistant, but someone who travelled with him.

In that HCB was not working alone in some cases.
In this case he was being assisted to find certain locations.