Henri Cartier-Bresson was a famous French photographer known as "the father of modern photojournalism." He helped develop street photography and was influenced by surrealist art. After studying painting, he became frustrated and switched to photography. Notable photos include "Hyères" from 1932 and landscapes from Mexico and France that emphasize contrast through black and white film.

1. Danielle Bridge
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson was a famous French
photographer. He was born August 22nd 1908 and he
died on August 3rd 2004, aged 95. He helped develop
the ‘street photography’ style that has influenced a
number of people in the present day and was
considered to be ‘the father of modern
photojournalism’.
Henri Cartier-Bresson, along with his family, lived in a
neighbourhood in Paris, near the Europe Bridge. His
family supported him financially to develop his
interests in photography, in a much more
independent way than some other photographers of
his age. As he was growing up, he would take holiday snapshots with his ‘Box Brownie’
camera, he then began to experiment with a view camera instead. As a boy, Henri Cartier-
Bresson became interested in music, but his attempt to learn it was unsuccessful so he took
on oil painting after being shown it by his uncle Louis. "Painting has been my obsession from
the time that my 'mythical father', my father's brother, led me into his studio during the
Christmas holidays in 1913, when I was five years old. There I lived in the atmosphere of
painting; I inhaled the canvases." However, his painting lessons were cut short as his uncle
died in world war one. When he was 19 years old, he entered a private art school and the
Lhote Academy. Cartier-Bresson also studied painting with Jacques Émile Blanche. Lhote
took his students to Parisian galleries to study contemporary art and to the Louvre to look at
classical artists. He gradually matured artistically in this cultural and political environment.
After all this, he could not find a way of expressing this imaginatively in his art work and
paintings. He was always frustrated with his experiments and he sometimes destroyed his
early works.
In the 1920s, schools of photographic realism were popping up throughout Europe, but each
had a different view on the direction photography should take. The photography revolution
had begun: "Crush tradition! Photograph things as they are!" The Surrealist movement
(founded in 1924) was a catalyst for this paradigm shift. Cartier-Bresson began socializing
with the Surrealists at the Café Cyrano, in the Place Blanche. He met a number of the
movement's leading protagonists, and was particularly drawn to the Surrealist movement's
linking of the subconscious and the immediate to their work. (www.wikipedia.org)
Henri Cartier-Bresson attended the University of Cambridge from 1928 and 1929, in which
he studied English, literature and art. Then in 1930 he completed his mandatory service in
the French Army.

2. Danielle Bridge
In 1931, Cartier-Bresson ventured to Africa. He survived by shooting game and then selling it
to local people. Whilst he hunted, he learned many different methods, in which he later
used in his photography. Whilst being in Africa, he developed blackwater fever which almost
killed him. Even though Cartier-Bresson took a portable, much smaller camera on his trip,
only seven photographs survived the tropics.
Cartier-Bresson then became inspired by a 1930
photograph by a photojournalist Martin Munkacsi showing
three young naked African boys running into the surf of
Lake Tanganyika, it was titled Three Boys at Lake
Tanganyika. This photograph inspired him to stop painting
and to make photography a serious, permanent
occupation. He photographed in Berlin, Brussels, Warsaw,
Prague, Budapest and Madrid. His photographs were first
exhibited at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in 1932,
and then afterwards at the Ateneo Club in Madrid.
In 1934 Cartier-Bresson met a young photographer called
David Seymour. The two men had a lot in common. He then met another photography
named Robert Capa. The three shared a studio in the early 1930’s and Capa mentored Henri
Cartier-Bresson, Don't keep the label of a surrealist photographer. “Be a photojournalist. If
not you will fall into mannerism. Keep surrealism in your little heart, my dear. Don't fidget.
Get moving!" –quote from wikipedia.
This photo was taken in 1932 by Henri Cartier-Bresson
and it was named ‘Hyères’. I really like this photo
because it shows the movement so clearly on the bike.
It also has many lines within the image that create the
dynamic effect. The black and white feature really
emphasis the shadows on the steps and it enhances the
contrast between different objects in the photo.
This photograph was taken in Mexico at a later
date, 1963. He called it ‘Popocatepetl Volcano’;
it shows a landscape within Mexico, a huge
volcano in the distance and a cross and stones
in the foreground. The black and white feature,
again, enhances the contrast between the
colours in the image. It is almost as if the
volcano in the background is disappearing
behind the ashy clouds, which really adds to
the effect.

3. Danielle Bridge
This third image was taken in 1954, and was named ‘Rue
Mouffetard’. It shows a small boy walking down the street
with a happy expression on his face. There is a shallow depth
of field included in this image; the small boy is in full focus,
whereas the background is blurred. What I like about this
photograph is that it is very natural and it shows a real life
situation. It was taken a long time ago, so it shows a different
time and age compared to now, which personally, I think is
very interesting and shows something different to what
photographs are popular nowadays.
Arizona, 1947 Cell in a Model Prison in the U.S.A., 1975
On the Banks of the Marne, 1938
Sources:
www.wikipedia.org
http://www.afterimagegallery.com
www.google.com (images)