Henri Cartier-Bresson, the decisive moment
« French photographer (1908-2004), Magnum co-founder, who invented modern street photography with a Leica. »
Trained as a painter, Henri Cartier-Bresson bought his first Leica in 1932. The discreet body became an extension of the eye. Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare (1932), Sevilla (1933), Hyères (1932): his geometrically exact compositions invented the language of modern photography.
In 1947, with Robert Capa, David Seymour and George Rodger, he founded Magnum Photos, the first global cooperative of photographer-authors. "The decisive moment" — the English title of his 1952 book — was not a slogan but a discipline: aim for the instant when form and meaning coincide.
A reporter in India during Gandhi's assassination, in China during the revolution, in Cuba under Castro, Cartier-Bresson gradually abandoned photography for drawing in the 1970s. He paved the way for a whole generation of humanist photographers — and made 35 mm the standard format of reportage.