Henri Cartier-Bresson Quotes

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 oneself involved in what one frames through the viewfinder. This attitude requires concentration, a discipline of the mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry.

— How do you make your pictures? — I don’t know, it’s not important.

Photography is simultaneously and instantaneously the recognition of a fact and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that express and signify that fact

To photograph is to hold one's breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It's at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.

Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.

We photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again. We cannot develop and print a memory.

Reality 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? ­