Photography – beginnings and endings

Please look at the picture full size against a grey background. I was reminded of a quote I read in Amateur Photographer Magazine recently by a guy called Sandy Wilson who wrote “photography begins way before we pick up our cameras and ends way after we put our cameras down”. He was writing in essence about what Henri Cartier-Bresson noted in 1952 “For me technology changes but photography stays the same”. I was taken back two years, by a questionRead more

Emotion in a picture frame

Please look at the picture full size against a grey background. I often describe three different categories of candid picture. The first category is a stage or a backdrop usually without human interest, it’s rather dull and lacking anything to say photographically. The second category is a stage with human interest, not necessarily a person. It is a picture that has been well composed and thought out. The third category takes all the best attributes of the second level andRead more

Return to Cartier-Bresson’s Focusing Method

This shot was an experiment. Some of my faithful long suffering Blog followers might remember that at the end of Dec. 2011 I said I wanted to challenge my photographic pre-conceptions. Many great Photographers of the past such as Henri Cartier-Bresson didn’t waste valuable time by focussing the camera for every shot. They used the a zone of acceptable apparent sharpness based on the Hyperfocal distance which is the calculated focussing point depending on the focal length of the lens,Read more

3:15 Canary Wharf – London, England

To crop or not to crop after the picture is taken? Henri Cartier-Bresson famously did not amend his original in camera choices of picture design or allow others to print his pictures other than full frame as shot. This post shows three crops from the same file. The feature image above shows my favourite of the three crops with the triangular composition based on the girl in the bottom left hand corner, clock at the top and bright toned clock onRead more

Everyone’s heard of Henri Cartier-Bresson Right 2

To quote Henri Cartier-Bresson “For me photography has not changed except in its technical aspects”. For me I take HCB to mean that there is a difference in thinking and operation between creating a photography and the techique of recording the idea with a camera. By may 2007 I had paraphrased HCB’s quote to “Photography has nothing to do with cameras and computers”. This is a follow on post from the previous post of the same name made a monthRead more

Everyone’s heard of Henri Cartier-Bresson right?

Everyone’s heard of Henri Cartier-Bresson right? He said that for him technology had changed but photography remained the same. When the French photographer and painter wrote those words in 1952 he summed up that photography is a mix of technology and visual design skills. When technology changes ie. cameras, film, digital, lenses etc, and photography remains the same. So what is photography? It would therefore be logical to conclude that cameras have nothing to do with photography. A camera is only aRead more