The focus for week 5 was analogue photography.
Who is the practitioner and when were they practising?
The practitioner is Henri Cartier Bresson, a French photojournalist and a co-founder of the international photographic cooperative, Magnum Photos. He became serious about photography in 1931 after he travelled to Africa.
What is the title of the photo you have chosen to analyse (can you provide a link?)
The title of the photo which I have chosen to analyse is ‘View from Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris.’
It can be found online here.
With the photo you are examining when was it produced (date)?
The photo was produced in 1952.
How was the photo authored?
Cartier-Bresson was known for shooting street photography with a Leica camera. This photo, like all of his other work, is black and white and likely shot using a 50mm lens. Cartier-Bresson believed in capturing the ‘decisive moment’ (Kim 2014) through recognising the subject matter and the ‘rigorous organisation of visually perceived forms that give it meaning’ (Kim 2014). This quote highlights Bresson’s passion for composition, which is evident in my chosen photo as the composition of the photo clearly makes the two people in the embrace the subject matter. Cartier-Bresson was not interested in manufactured or staged photography, rather focusing on spontaneity and discovery. He was also famous for being against cropping his images, and it is evident that the photo I have chosen has not been cropped.
How was the photo published?
The photo was originally printed on gelatin silver. The benefit of this type of printing process is that it ‘can attain true black and white tones’ (‘Historic Photographic Processes’ 2002, para. 3), which would have positively affected Cartier-Bresson’s photographs. Gelatin silver prints are were also much easier to produce compared to other printing processes.
How was the photo distributed?
It was likely that this photo was printed in magazines such as Paris Match, Look and Life (Gavin 2018, para. 4). Life, for example, was a US-based all-photographic weekly news magazine that sold more than 13.5 million copies a week at one point (Wikipedia 2019).
The photo is now listed on Artsy for $30 000 (currency not stated) from the Peter Fetterman Gallery in Santa Monica as part of a limited edition set.
Reference list:
Gavin, F 2018, An LA photo exhibition that’s a love letter to Paris, how to spend it, viewed 25 April 2019, <https://howtospendit.ft.com/art-philanthropy/204460-an-la-photo-exhibition-that-s-a-love-letter-to-paris>
‘Historic Photographic Processes’ 2002, Andrew D. White Architectural Photographs Collection, viewed 25 April 2019, Cornwell University Library.
Kim, E 2014, ’17 Lessons Henri Cartier-Bresson Has Taught Me About Street Photography’, Eric Kim Photography, blog post, n.d., viewed 25 April 2019, <http://erickimphotography.com/blog/2014/12/09/17-lessons-henri-cartier-bresson-taught-street-photography/>.
Wikipedia 2019, Life (magazine), Wikipedia, viewed 25 April 2019, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_(magazine)>.