Even though Cartier-Bresson dismissed photography as anything of much importance in his life and in his later years actually abandoned it in favor of painting and drawing, he has had a major influence in the history of the medium.
He has also had a major influence on me.
At an opening of mine a couple of years ago, a lawyer friend who has no training in or real passion for art said to me, “You must have been really good in geometry!”
I was taken aback by Rosie’s comment. I had struggled through all my math classes back in middle and high school and never did all that well in any of them… with the exception of geometry. I loved it and actually did OK in it.
I didn’t realize it showed up in my work as a photographer until Rosie called it to my attention that night at the gallery.
I am certainly unaware of the fact that I am thinking (?) in a geometric way when making certain pictures; I am always pleasantly surprised when it becomes an obvious and consistent thread in the work.
"For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. In order to ‘give a meaning’ to the world, one has to feel involved in what one frames through the viewfinder. This attitude requires concentration, discipline of mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry. It is by economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression." -Henri Cartier-Bresson
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