{"id":22607,"date":"2015-02-17T17:21:26","date_gmt":"2015-02-18T01:21:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=22607"},"modified":"2015-02-17T17:24:31","modified_gmt":"2015-02-18T01:24:31","slug":"book-review-the-decisive-moment-by-henri-cartier-bresson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2015\/02\/17\/book-review-the-decisive-moment-by-henri-cartier-bresson\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: The Decisive Moment by Henri Cartier-Bresson"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u00e2\u20ac\u0153A bible for photographers\u00e2\u20ac\u009d – Clement Cheroux<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wow\u00e2\u20ac\u201d where do I even begin? I would say that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by Cartier-Bresson is one of the most beautiful photo books I have ever handled\u00e2\u20ac\u201d and it is a book that brings me extreme joy and happiness (you can see all the photos from the book for free on the MagnumPhotos website here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Sure I have seen many of these photos by Cartier-Bresson before, but to see them in a physical manifestation is a different experience. Not only that, but the original version of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was nearly impossible to get (second-hand copies before the reprint were around $1000+). However now with this re-print by Steidl, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is now open to everybody.<\/p>\n

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My history with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/h2>\n

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Many photographers I know who embarked on street photography (about a decade before I did) always mention \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by Cartier-Bresson as a starting point. They all shared how inspired and moved they were by the book, and how it kick-started their journey into street photography.<\/p>\n

I had never seen \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in person before\u00e2\u20ac\u201d but I had already seen almost all of Henri Cartier-Bresson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s photographs online, in other photography books, and on the MagnumPhotos<\/a> website.<\/p>\n

\"Back
Back cover of “The Decisive Moment”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I first heard about the re-print of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I was pretty stoked. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know exactly how excited I was to see the photographs in the book (as I already have seen most of them)\u00e2\u20ac\u201d but one of the biggest reasons I ordered the book was for the vanity of actually owning the book. And I was curious to see how the book looked, felt, and how the photos were arranged in the book.<\/p>\n

I pre-ordered the book several months before, and mostly forgot about it. Then suddenly one day it appeared on my doorstop. Like a kid waiting for his Christmas presents, I tore open the box, and opened it with joy.<\/p>\n

My first impression: boy, is this book HUGE. It was a lot bigger than I expected (it measures around two of my hands vertically, and one and a half of my hands horizontally).<\/p>\n

Not only that, but I was quite surprised to see that there was an accompanying \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pamphlet\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which is an introduction to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. In the pamphlet (also huge) was a nice historical backdrop of the printing of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, technical notes, and how the book was put together.<\/p>\n

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The pamphlet accompanying “The Decisive Moment”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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I then started to look through \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and was blown away with the quality of the printing. The paper is nice and thick, has a slight cream\/ivory color, and the prints of the photographs are unlike anything I have ever seen before. There is phenomenal tonality in the prints\u00e2\u20ac\u201d you can see an amazing gradation between the whites\/greys\/blacks in the prints. There is still detail in the blacks of the photos, and there are no whites that are totally blown out either. Not only that, but the photos are also HUGE. They are a lot bigger than I had ever seen (on my computer monitor), and I really felt the presence of the images.<\/p>\n

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What I was also fascinated by were the pairings in the book. I had seen the majority of Cartier-Bresson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s images as single-images. But seeing the images paired in the book created a totally new meaning for me. For example, there are certain spreads in the book in which he pairs images of America (adds to the depressing mood), and there are other spreads where he has one vertical photo and two horizontal photos\u00e2\u20ac\u201d which make an interesting mosaic.<\/p>\n

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Not only that, but on the jacket of the book are still the original introductions and reviews from the original copy of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. I literally felt like I was holding a piece of history\u00e2\u20ac\u201d which transported me to the past.<\/p>\n

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I read the entire book cover-to-cover several times from the nice amber light of my desk at home in the evening \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and it put me in a mellow and reflective mood. I lived with the images that evening, and went to sleep with an inner-sense of calm.<\/p>\n

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I am now reviewing this book from one of my favorite cafes in Berkeley (Artis Coffee)\u00e2\u20ac\u201d and I want to share some interesting information, history, and lessons from \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n

Long story short\u00e2\u20ac\u201d I highly recommend the book. Even if you might not have the cash right now, just order a copy of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on your credit card. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m almost 100% sure this copy will sell out quite quickly, and perhaps a year from now you won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be able to get a copy for less than $300\u00e2\u20ac\u201c400. I could also easily say that this is one of my top\u00e2\u20ac\u201c5 favorite photography books of all time.<\/p>\n

The creation of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/h2>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u0153While our prints are beautiful and perfectly composed (as they should be), they are not photographs for salons [\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6] In the end, our final image is the printed one.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d – Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1951.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Cartier-Bresson wrote this in 1951, it was quite uncommon for photographers to publish photo books. The majority of photos were printed in magazines, and also shown in exhibitions. Henri Cartier-Bresson shares his frustration for having his photos printed in magazines, and also his need for a book:<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Magazines end up wrapping French fries or being thrown in the bin, while books remain.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One of his biggest frustrations was the fact that he wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t able to sequence and layout his photographs in magazines. He shares his frustration by sharing:<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The words are those of the photographer, but the phrasing is that of the magazine.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Cartier-Bresson first started to come up with the idea of putting together \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in the spring of 1951. On May 4th, Tommy, an assistant at the Magnum Photos office in Paris wrote to Cartier-Bresson in a letter saying that he started to gather a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153selection of pix for Watkins [\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6] for the purpose of showing a possible publisher the scope of your book as well as its quality.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Before, Cartier-Bresson was in correspondence with Armitage Watkins, a literary agent based in New York after inquiries from Richard L. Simon from Simon and Schuster Publishing was interested in publishing a book of Cartier-Bresson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s images.<\/p>\n

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At the end of the book, Simon shares some technical notes from Henri Cartier-Bresson.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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In 1952, Cartier-Bresson started to compile a selection of images from the book\u00e2\u20ac\u201d and he wrote to Teriade in two letters:<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I am filing my images and researching in the archive. [\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6] Everything is fine. I found a fair amount of images in my US archive, and I will soon look into the Oriental one.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the next few weeks, he started to write an introduction with the help of Marguerite Lang, one of the colleagues of Teriade. At the end of March, the preface was done and translated. Soon after, they prepared three copies of a book dummy. The French edition of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was to be called: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Images a la Sauvette\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Over the Easter holiday in April, Cartier-Bresson showed the book dummy to Matisse, and probably around that time Matisse created the book cover.<\/p>\n

The book was printed in July 22nd, and officially released in France and the United States on October 15, 1952.<\/p>\n

The collaborative effort of putting together \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/h2>\n

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One of the things that I learned was how important teamwork was in creating \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. In all, there were more than 15 people who collaborated on making \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n

To start off, Richard Leo Simon (of the famous publishing house Simon and Schuster) was an amateur photographer with a strong interest in photography and technology. He authored a handbook called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Miniature Photography\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which included practical advice for amateur photographers. Simon was fascinated in the work of Cartier-Bresson, in which he referred to him as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153one of the great photographers in the world\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n

Nancy White (who was the niece of the Editor-in-Chief of Harper\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Bazaar) invited Cartier-Bresson to contact Richard Leo Simon through Armitage Watkins.<\/p>\n

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The literary agent Armitage Watkins collaborated with Simon and Schuster. At Teriade\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, Marguerite Lang helped Cartier-Bresson with the preface. At Magnum Photos in Paris, Tommy and Robert Muller made the first edit of images and researched the captions. Suzie Marquis (the cousin of Robert Capa), transcribed the introduction and proofread the text. Margot Shore (head of the Magnum Photos Paris office) translated the preface into English. Armel Gourvil and Lionel Birch (the first husband of Inge Morath) also helped with translations. At Magnum Photos in New York, Pat Hagan and Robert Capa closely watched over the project. At Pictoral service, Pierre Gassman supervised tests and printing for the first 3 book dummies and prepared the glass plates for the heliogravure printing at Draeger\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00e2\u20ac\u201d and the Draeger brothers printed the book. Matisse designed the cover.<\/p>\n

So you can see that when putting together a photography book (especially as great as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d)\u00e2\u20ac\u201d it is truly a collaborative effort. Something to think about when you plan on putting together your own photography book. Think about the people you need to help you design the cover, with the text in the book, with the selection and layout, and the final printing of the book.<\/p>\n

The cover of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by Matisse<\/h2>\n

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One of the most striking things about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is the cover by Matisse. It is a bit ironic that the cover of a photography book is a design by Matisse, who was famous for his paper gouache cutout technique.<\/p>\n

The original cover of the book measures 36x57cm and it includes several symbolic elements. In the upper-right corner, you have a bright sun\u00e2\u20ac\u201d with a line of blue mountains in the background. In the middle, you can see a bird holding a branch of cineraria in its beak, and in the bottom you can see a few green or black vegetative-forms and a diamond shape (which could be a stone or a puddle of water). And in the bottom of the cover, you can see the elegant calligraphy of Matisse, who funny enough forgot the hyphen between \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Cartier\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Bresson\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n

\"Back<\/p>\n

The back cover includes green and blue spirals and speckles in-between. According to curator Dominique Szymusaik, they were meant to evoke \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the pace of time\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n

Whatever the symbolism of the cover and back-cover, it has a beautiful and classic look. I could almost imagine cutting out the cover and framing it just as a print. I think the cover of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is one of the major elements that make it truly feel like a work of art.<\/p>\n

The dimensions of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/h2>\n

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I also found it interesting how the dimensions of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d were quite intentional. The book is vertical, and measures 37×27.4cm\u00e2\u20ac\u201d which was a size proportional to the 24×36 film used by Cartier-Bresson.<\/p>\n

The biggest advantage was this: it allowed the full spread of one horizontal photograph or two vertical photos on a double page. The original paper was a luxurious matte paper called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Helio Afnor VII\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d which was the highest quality standard for paper-makers. The book comprised of 156 pages, and the high standard of printing blew people away. Walker Evans called the book having a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153breathtaking quality\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201d and William Eggleston explained the following:<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I had picked up \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThe Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 years ago when I was already making prints, so the first thing I noticed was the tonal quality of the black and white. There were no shadow areas that were totally black, where you couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make out what was in them, and there were no totally white areas. It was only later that I was struck by the wonderful, correct composition and framing. This was apparent through the tones of the printed book. I later found some actual prints of the same pictures in New York. They were nothing\u00e2\u20ac\u201d just ordinary looking photographs, but they were the same pictures I had worshipped and idolized, yet I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have given ten cents for them. I still go back to the book every couple of years and I know it is the tones that makes the composition come across.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Layout of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/h2>\n

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The layout and sequencing of the book is as follows:<\/p>\n

The book opens with an introduction by Henri Cartier-Bresson, which is followed by along sequence of pictures, a few pages of captions, then a second set of pictures, once again ending with more captions. In the American version, there are technical notes at the end of the book by Simon.<\/p>\n

In terms of the templates in the layout, there are 4 types:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. 28 double-pages with two vertical photos (the most common layout)<\/li>\n
  2. 19 double-pages which show only one photograph (horizontals)<\/li>\n
  3. 13 double-pages that show three photographs (one vertical and two horizontal)<\/li>\n
  4. 2 double-pages with four horizontal photographs.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The layout of the book is simple and elegant\u00e2\u20ac\u201d and it works. For the pages with the double-pages with the two vertical photos\u00e2\u20ac\u201d the photographs generally have a commonality between them. With the double-pages with only one horizontal photograph, they tend to be strong single-images that demand respect. The double-pages with three photographs create a nice mosaic that adds to the flow of images, and the 2 double-pages with four horizontal photographs create a nice collage as well.<\/p>\n

    Sequencing of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/h2>\n

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    In terms of the sequence of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d there are two major sections. The first section includes 60 pages, and the second section includes 68 pages. Both sections include 63 images.<\/p>\n

    The sequencing of images is mostly chronological. The first section of photographs is mostly between 1932\u00e2\u20ac\u201c1947. The second section mostly includes photos from 1947\u00e2\u20ac\u201c1952.<\/p>\n

    The first section seems to be Cartier-Bresson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more \u00e2\u20ac\u0153artistic\u00e2\u20ac\u009d photos\u00e2\u20ac\u201d and the second section is most of his photojournalistic images.<\/p>\n

    The first section includes images from France, Europe, Mexico, and the US. The second section includes images from India, Indonesia, China and the Middle East. In the American version of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the table of contents shows an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Occidental section\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oriental section\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n

    Titles for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/h2>\n

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    Another thing I found fascinating about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Decisive Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is all the potential titles Cartier-Bresson brainstormed. Apparently many of the titles that he first came up with were inspired from Voltaire, Buffon, Racine, Corneille or Pascal\u00e2\u20ac\u201d with some of the titles dealing with the notion of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153time\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n

    Cartier-Bresson came up with 45 titles \u00e2\u20ac\u201d here is a breakdown of the concepts he included:<\/p>\n