Let me introduce you to Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer considered as the father of photojournalism. It consists in telling a story related to recent events through pictures that replicate the reality in an objective way.

I think that this quote of Cartier-Bresson tells as much as any boring and academic definition:
"The photograph itself doesn't interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality." 

If you want to know more about him, Wikipedia is your best friend. I'm not going to copy-paste his whole biography here because there is no point. If you want to know more about him, you don't need me!

So let's have a look at what really matters : pictures!

This is one of the pictures that enabled him to achieve international recognition. It represents Nehru annoug gandhi's death to the crowd in 1948.

Don't you fill a bit dizzy watching these 2 pictures? I do. And they really make me think of some of Kertész's pictures, for example the one of Montmartre that I published in my last article.

This one too has similarities with Kertész's work I think. Who's the master? I think it's Cartier-Bresson. 

I hope you enjoyed this pictures as much as I do!

André Kertész : autodidact genius

This time, I'd like to share some pictures by André Kertész, a Hungarian photographer that you may already know because he is quite famous (he was awarded the Legion of Honor by the French government), but it doesn't matter. I particularly like his street scenes pictures (especially those taken in Paris) and his distorted nudes. I'm not in a position to comment the technical aspects of these pictures because I'm far from being an expert. But there is no need to be an expert to enjoy the beauty of his work. It took me hours to select a few pictures because they are so many of them that are worth seeing... Enjoy if you can!

Eiffel Tower
I LOVE this one

Montmartre

 

Place de la Concorde

 

Place Gambetta



 Next time I'll show you pictures of a French photographer, the father of photojournalism, whose work I really like too.

Nice discovery : Jan Saudek, photographer

I'm not a good photographer but I really like photography. I started to be particularly interested in it 2 years ago, when I made a work placement in a photo agency. My tasks had nothing to do with photography, but my boss was a photographer and since we had a very good relationship, he liked sharing his passion with me. I learnt a lot thanks to him and he also gave me the opportunity to come with him on a shooting for the advertising campaign of a cosmetics brand. It was very interesting to see a real professional shooting, with a real model. It is completely crazy to have such a control over your image. This Brasilian model mastered each muscle of her body and knew exactly how to take the best of it. No constipated smile like you and me!

I think this is the picture that the brand selected.

Anyway, this is not the type of pictures that I like, but this is during this work placement that I started to be interested in artistic photography, and I'd like to share with you some interesting pictures made by photographers whose work I particularly admire. Let's start with Jan Saudek, a Czech photographer that I discovered very recently. Not only do I find his pictures themselves breath-taking, but I also find some of the titles very interesting.  His nude pictures are sometimes crude and/or aggressive, or even grim for some of them, but they are all so elaborate that they are always fascinating. Some of them look like paintings. 





"My very first photograph"



   

"Hungry for your touch"



"David, lonely forever"



 

"Eine Tanzerin"



  

"Tell me, mirror"



"Czech girl singing"





His pictures about fatherhood also touch me a lot.



"First steps"





"The shelter"



"On the way"



"Kissing the tears away"





"You'll be a fortress and I'll be safe inside your massive walls"



Finally, what I like about his work is that anyone is worth being a model, everyone looks nice.

  

"Balerina"



 

"The girl I loved"



"The Knife"



 

"Kiss off"





"Portrait of my friend"



I like Saudek's universe so much that I ordered 2 picture books from his website, and I don't regret it, they are wonderful. It's a pity I can't show you all those I love, because lots of his pictures are nowhere to be found on the Internet. At the same time, this makes me all the more happy to have bought the books!

See you soon for another series of pictures!