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.
Henri Cartier-BressonThe Photography is a chopper which in the eternity seizes the moment which dazzled it.
Henri Cartier-BressonReality offers us such wealth that we must cut some of it out on the spot, simplify. The question is, do we always cut out what we should?
Henri Cartier-BressonThink 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.
Henri Cartier-BressonI am a pack of nerves while waiting for the moment, and this feeling grows and grows and grows and then it explodes, it is a physical joy, a dance, space and time united. Yes, yes, yes, yes!
Henri Cartier-BressonOf all the means of expression, photography is the only one that fixes a precise moment in time.
Henri Cartier-BressonI'm not responsible for my photographs. Photography is not documentary, but intuition, a poetic experience. It's drowning yourself, dissolving yourself, and then sniff, sniff, sniff - being sensitive to coincidence. You can't go looking for it; you can't want it, or you won't get it. First you must lose your self. Then it happens.
Henri Cartier-Bresson