Henri Cartier-Bresson Thinking Quotations

Think about the photo before and after, never during. The secret is to take your time. You mustn't go too fast. The subject must forget about you. Then, however, you must be very quick.

What do you think I'm a professor of? The little finger? (On offers of honorary doctorates.)

Thinking should be done beforehand and afterwards - never while actually taking a photograph.

Thinking should be done before and after, not during photographing. Success depends on the extent of one's general culture. one's set of values, one's clarity of mind one's vivacity. The thing to be feared most is the artificially contrived, the contrary to life.

The camera is for us a tool, not a pretty mechanical toy ... people think far too much about techniques and not enough about seeing.

Poetry is the essence of everything, and it’s through deep contact with reality and living fully that you reach poetry. Very often I see photographers cultivating the strangeness or awkwardness of a scene, thinking it is poetry. No. Poetry is two elements which are suddenly conflict — a spark between two elements. But it’s given very seldom, and you can’t look for it. It’s like if you look for inspiration. No, it just comes by enriching yourself and living.

Rene Char wrote somewhere, apropos poetry, that there are those who create and those who discover; they are too completely different worlds. Photograph also has two sides to it and thank goodness, I am only intersted in those who discover; I feel a certain solidarity with those who set out in a spirit of discovery; I think there is much more risk invovled in this than in trying to create images; and in the end, reality is more important.

Thinking should be done before and after, not during photographing.

The difference between a good picture and a mediocre picture is a question of millimeters - small, small differences - but it’s essential. I didn’t think there is such a big difference between photographers. Very little difference. But it is that little difference that counts, maybe