Henri

Cartier-Bresson
Henri
Cartier-Bresson

Interviews and Conversations

1951–1998

Edited and with a foreword by

Clément Chéroux and Julie Jones
Table of Contents
Foreword 6
Clément Chéroux and Julie Jones

A Reporter . . . 9
Interview with Daniel Masclet (1951)

Photography Is Very Diffi cult 15

Interview with Richard L. Simon (ca. 1952)

Conversation 31
Interview with Byron Dobell (1957)

To Seize Life 41
Interview with Yvonne Baby (1961)

It Jumps Out of You 49

Interview with Sheila Turner-Seed (1973)

Only Geometricians May Enter 59

Interview with Yves Bourde (1974)
The Main Thing Is Looking 69
Interview with Alain Desvergnes (1979)

The Hard Pleasure of Photography 87

Interview with Gilles A. Tiberghien (1986)

An Endless Play 99
Interview with Gilles Mora (1986)

Photographing Is Nothing, 111

Looking Is Everything!
Interview with Philippe Boegner (1989)

We Always Talk Too Much 127

Conversation with Pierre Assouline (1994)

Proust Questionnaire 143

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1998)

Endnotes 146
Selected Bibliography 153
Credits 159
Foreword
Henri Cartier-Bresson often defi ned himself as a visual person.
“I watch, watch, watch. I understand things through my eyes,”
he wrote in 1963.1 Throughout his life, his preferred language
was the image. He did take a lot of notes during his reporting
and kept a constant correspondence with his family, but in the end
he wrote little about his own photographic practice. In the books
published during his lifetime, there are only four or five texts
in his hand. He preferred to give his writer friends the task of
putting words to his images. L’imaginaire d’après nature/The
Mind’s Eye, a collection of his prefaces and articles, published
by Éditions Fata Morgana in 1996 (and by Aperture in 1999), is
a thin volume containing no more than twenty-five short texts. 2
Much more than in these few writings, it is in fact in his interviews
that Cartier-Bresson’s liveliest thinking can be found. It is the one
place where the photographer has indeed not been sparing with
his words.
Crowned as he was with the prestige of his exhibition at the
Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1947, holding throughout
the second half of the twentieth century a prominent position in the
world of photography, a standard-bearer of the artistic recognition
of the medium in France, Cartier-Bresson was often sought after
by journalists or specialists. This book brings together twelve
interviews made between 1951 and 1998, the period during which the
photographer most benefited from media attention.
Most of these talks have not been reissued since their publication
and are therefore difficult to find. They reveal a fascinating and
passionate Cartier-Bresson, who talks about his photography,
comments on the state of the world, and reflects on his path. Spread
over nearly half a century, his words make it possible to perceive
the evolution of the photographer’s thinking: he backs down from his

6 Foreword
comments, changes his mind, sometimes contradicts himself. The
image that the interviews give of Cartier-Bresson is not frozen in
legend, but on the contrary, alive and kicking.

—Clément Chéroux and Julie Jones

Clément Chéroux is the senior curator in the department of photography at the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Previously, he served as the chief curator of
photography at the Musée National d’Art Moderne at the Centre Pompidou, Paris.

Julie Jones holds a PhD in contemporary art history from Pantheon- Sorbonne
University and is the assistant curator in the photography department of the Musée
National d’Art Moderne at the Centre Pompidou, Paris.

Foreword 7
A Reporter . . .

Interview with
Daniel Masclet (1951)
Noon . . . Here I am at Cartier’s, at his home: I leapt there when
I heard that he was going (rare luck) to finally spend a few days
in Paris, between two or three treks to Java, Germany, or Mexico.
Cartier-Bresson was there and the two of us chatted. What about?
But photography, of course.

Henri Cartier-Bresson: Of course photography is a means of

expression, like music or poetry. It is how I express myself; it’s also
my trade. But in addition, it is what gives us the means, through our
images, to bear witness . . . we, the photojournalists.

Daniel Masclet: International reporters . . .

If you wish! We reporters, we focus less on the aesthetics of the print
itself—quality, tone, depth, texture, and so on—than on the image,
where life surges first, before aesthetics. In short, our final image
is the printed one. Although our prints are beautiful and perfectly
composed (and so they’d better be), this does not make them pictures
for salons. First of all, an exhibition print does not need words, just
a title, while ours have a commentary, a “caption,” which is not quite
an explanatory text, but a verbal context for the picture, which frames
it . . . and it is for us to write it, so that the meaning between image
and text can match. What we write is about the image, but the image
is not made for the text. Robert Capa works this way, I do myself, so
do Weegee and others. . . .

You are onlookers: the world “acts” for you.

Yes, but we are not, we will not, be just onlookers, that would
be rather a bad role, we are also actors, because, after all, we
are involved in this world and in this Life, as during all great
ages. Ah! A while ago, you used the term photo-illustrator: yes,
sure, provided that the illustrator is not . . . [Paul Charles]
Chocarne-Moreau!3

10 1951
We agree. But let’s see: what is your most important subject?
Man. Man and his life, so brief, so frail, so threatened. The focus of
great artists—like my friends [Edward] Weston, or Paul Strand or
[Ansel] Adams—with great talent, is more on the natural, geological
element, on landscape, on monuments. My main concern is, almost
exclusively, man. I go for the most urgent. Landscapes have eternity
going for them. This human being, of course, I do not separate him
arbitrarily from his environment, I do not detach him from his
habitat: I am a reporter, not a studio photographer. But the exterior
(or interior) where a man, my subject, lives and acts, is to me only
a signifi cant backdrop, if you will. I use this backdrop to locate my
actors, give them their importance, treat them with the respect they
are due. And my method is based on respect, which reality also
possesses: no noise, no personal ostentation, be invisible, as far as
possible, do not “prepare” anything, do not “arrange” anything, just
be there, arrive quietly, stealthily,4 so as not to disturb the water.

So naturally, no flash!
Oh, definitely no flash! That is not the light of life. I never use it, I
do not want to use it. Let us remain within the real, the authentic!
Because authenticity is perhaps the greatest virtue of Photography.

When your fi rst images were seen, your fi rst exhibitions,

in Mexico, 1934, with [Manuel] Álvarez Bravo, and in New
York, 1935, with Walker Evans, the word anti-graphics was
used to characterize them because they were dominated by
spirit, life, and movement: I’ve never understood this term
applied to your works. Anti-Pictorialist photos perhaps,
but not anti-graphic! They are too well composed not to be
“graphic.” What do you say?
That’s absurd. We can’t separate the form from the content, there is
a whole play of interrelations between them. The misfortune of both

Daniel Masclet 11
Salon photographs and Pictorialist photographs is that they often
possess a beautiful form, but so empty, so hollow. . . .

A carafe without water . . .

Yes, but the content—so important—must be presented graphically,
precisely in order not to be diminished, damaged, by poor form.
The perfect union (and naturally instinctive) of form and content,
this is the . . .

. . . the heart of the problem! Bravo. We need only to look

at your pictures to see—if one is a bit of a connoisseur—
their surprising structure, built with planes of almost
geometric lines of force and proportions. And I believe
that you are, along with Weston and some others, one of
the few photographers who prohibit cropping their images
when they are reproduced. How right you are with these
artistic standards! And how desirable it would be for all
newspaper and magazine editors not to thoughtlessly crop
works that have been carefully weighed and balanced,
where each part—even the most apparently insignificant—
plays a role within the whole, and contributes a
complement without which the picture is crippled and
stutters.
By profession, I know that layout is often very limited. . . . But I also
know that sometimes our images are cropped for no reason, for the
sake of cropping. As for myself, I never crop my images when I print
them; cropping is just like dubbing a movie, or like those pretty girls
who have nose jobs, and after that nothing “works” in their faces.
Composing, framing when you shoot, that is the only truth, even
for the reporter. Would you believe it, some of my pictures have a
composition, an arrangement—at one hundredth of a second—that
follows the Golden Ratio exactly.

12 1951
Now, my friend Cartier, let’s talk a bit about technique.
I know you have used the Leica since you started. Do you
still use it? Which lenses? Which apertures?
I have never given up the Leica; every time I tried something else I
always went back to it. I am not saying that it would be the same for
someone else. But for me, this is the camera. It is literally a visual
extension of my eye . . . its grip, tight against my forehead, its “swing”
when I swivel my sight to one side or the other, gives me the feeling
of being the referee in a game unfolding before me; I have to seize its
atmosphere at a hundredth of a second. My shooting technique is an
instinctive reaction. Naturally, I take advantage of the possibilities of
different lenses, but I don’t carry a suitcase full of them: an Elmar
50 mm, a wide-angle 35 mm, and an 85 mm—these are my tools, with,
of course, the latest, the f/1.5, for night photography. I take advantage
of these various depths, I open or close the shutter, or I leave a full
aperture: it depends on my needs. I like my pictures to be sharp, or
rather, acute . . . That being more a style than a technique. . . . Too
many photographers pay more attention to technique and forget style,
which is much more important. I have never run a “studio.” And
when I make a portrait, I do not “pose” my subject, I observe and
I press the shutter when the character surges forth.

You have been painting, haven’t you, and also shooting

movies?
Yes. It’s the same thing on three levels, it’s my . . . three “gears”! . . .
I worked with [Jean] Renoir on La règle du jeu [The Rules of the
Game; 1939]. I shot the film Le Retour [The Return; 1944–45]. But
I’m mostly a photographer, passionate about photography.

First published as “Un reporter . . . Henri Cartier-Bresson: Interview de Daniel Masclet

du Groupe des XV,” Photo-France, no. 7 (May 1951): 28, 33.

Daniel Masclet 13
Photography
Is Very Difficult

Interview with
Richard L. Simon (ca. 1952)
Richard L. Simon:5 In the foreword to your text,6 discussing
your background, you say your fi rst camera was a [Kodak]
Box Brownie. How old were you when you got it?
Henri Cartier-Bresson: Between fourteen and fi fteen.

Did you start developing your own pictures immediately?

No, I sent them out to what you call “the corner drugstore” and we
call le marchand de couleurs.

How long before you became dissatisfied with these results?

Oh, you must understand that I was not a real camera fan. I just
happened to have this camera, and I took it along on picnics,
vacations, those sorts of things.

How many years after (that fi rst Box Brownie) was it before
you became interested in photography as an Art?
It was in line with the rest of my development. I was not in any way
a precocious child. I developed very slowly. I always liked painting,
though. It taught me to see. At fi fteen years old, I painted, studied
painting, and I looked at paintings. I did a lot of reading. So I cannot
say there was any moment at which I became aware that photography
was an art, or that I felt it as such.

What interested you later, in photography? Do you

remember anything specific?
No, I was interested in literature and paintings—all the arts.

What got you really interested in the camera?

I played with it; I tried out all sorts of things to see what it could do.
I got a 2 ¼-by-3 ¼-inch Kodak. Still, at this time, I took my developing
to the corner drugstore. I fooled with cameras, only playing with the
idea of photography, until I went into military service. In that same

16 1952
period, I met people who had prints by [Eugène] Atget.7 It interested
me very much, his work. I was impressed. It was a rich period for Art
(in general). [ . . . ] It was during that period that I took the pictures of
the people in Dieppe.

But how did it really start, you and photography?

Ah, I remember how it all started. I had two younger sisters. I was
always teasing them. To keep me from doing this, my mother took
me to concerts. Music interested me, and naturally it led me to
other fields, such as art and literature. While I was studying, and
supposed to go into my father’s business, I failed my baccalaureate
because I was so busy studying painting, and reading everything I
could find.

For the picture in Dieppe, did you do your own developing

and printing?
No, again it was a drugstore-processed picture.

How old were you when you started doing your own
developing and printing?
About twenty. I had no idea how to do it. I bought powder, made
solutions with it, used utensils and pans left over from an uncle who
had been keen on photography . . . and, like any amateur, I simply
read the instructions printed on the accompanying leaflets or on
the box.

Didn’t you read any books on the subject?

I did not know that any existed and I never had any curiosity about
them. I remember a woman photographer’s work. Her name was
Germaine Krull. She was someone like Berenice Abbott. She was
Dutch [sic: German].8 She took pictures of harbors and realistic things
that impressed me with their “picturesque reality.”

Richard L. Simon 17
But then you kept on working with the 2 ¼ by 3 ¼?
Yes, a little, but I was preoccupied with painting. Even in the army, I
received a special leave to design our squadron emblem (I was in the
air force). It was sort of a duck wearing boots. At that time I was only
interested in painting. I studied with André Lhote for two years. With
painting, you must work at it every day, every day. Photography—you
can take a picture any time. [ . . . ]

How did you get your fi rst Leica?

At the time of my military service, I met Harry Crosby and became
friendly with him. He knew Peter Powel, and Powel had prints by
Atget. Powel was a fine photographer. About that time, too, I saw
portraits by Man Ray, and then I started looking at photography
more closely. Then I bought a view camera (no shutter, just a lens
cap). [Giorgio] de Chirico’s paintings impressed me. I began taking
photographs of sun on shutters, things like that.

In other words, you started taking candid pictures with a

bellows camera, and afterward began composing pictures
carefully on the ground glass of a plate camera.
Yes. After that, when my military service was finished, I found a
freighter and boarded for Africa. I stayed a year there. I took pictures,
but mostly I was reading. It was in Africa that I first saw a miniature
camera. I had a little money saved from my family allowance, and
I took passage to the Cameroons. I wanted to work on a boat, but I had
no working papers. But at least I had the passage. I stayed on the ship
and found out that it was due to go back to France, so I got off at a
little stop [in the Ivory Coast]. . . .
At this place there was a white man, a Frenchman. He was a
timber cutter and I wanted a job. But he got sunstroke and went mad,
and I was embarrassed to be with him; he went quite mad and asked
his “boy” to take the gun and shoot him, because he was conscious

18 1952
of his illness. I sent a runner fi fty miles to find another white man,
in the village of Béréby, and I moved there. This man, Ginestière,
had a steam engine for oil extraction, but it was not working. It was
the Great Depression. I stayed with him for many months and we had
a little business of hunting at night, for water deer [sic], crocodiles,
warthogs, antelopes, monkeys. We shot them, traded and sold them.
This Frenchman played chess endlessly—his right hand against his
left. [ . . . ]
I wanted to go north to the Niger, to buy kola nuts, and I went to
a trading post at Tabou. I bought Ginestière’s miniature camera from
him. It was the first time I had seen one in my life. It was a Krauss,
a French firm that’s still in existence, although I have never seen a
camera like that since. I was delighted with it, and amazed. I took a
few pictures at once.
But I had complications from malaria. I got blackwater fever
and became very ill. I went north [from the Ivory Coast], along the
Liberian frontier, with two porters and my crate of books. And a fat
old black woman who spoke a little English said she would cure my
fever. She fixed something with roots, seeds, and herbs. I stayed there
for five months. Somehow she cured me. No, I didn’t paint. I only read
and hunted and did almost no photography. The photographs that I
took were covered with large fern patterns made by the damp that had
got into the camera.
After one year in Africa, I came back home to Paris. I was very
weak from the fever, and went to Marseilles to live in a tranquil
setting. I went there for the mild climate. Before leaving, I went to
Tiranty (the Leica agent in Paris, still in business), and bought my first
Leica. It was very expensive. I borrowed the money from my father,
because somehow it was important that I have it. I had lost some of
my interest in painting by then, and I was living in Marseilles, where
I always had my Leica with me, as I was always searching the streets,
looking, walking, all day.

Richard L. Simon 19
When you bought your fi rst Leica, then, was it because it
combined taking snapshots with being able to compose in a
similar manner to a plate camera?
Yes, that’s exactly what it was for me. Also, it was a very discreet
camera. I always keep the Vidom viewfinder on it. Otherwise, I
couldn’t see anything. My eyes are so accustomed to it, I would never
be able to take pictures any other way. Or in any other proportions
than the Leica’s [24-by-36-mm format].

But there are some square paintings, and the Rolleiflex

makes a square picture.
Yes, there are some square paintings . . . but squares present a
definite problem in composition. And I don’t believe in cropping. With
the Leica, there is a play between horizontal and vertical.

Your theory is that you must work instantly?

Yes, pictures must be made instantly and instinctively, and composed
at the same time.

How many pictures that you like do you get from thirty-six
frames on a roll of 35 mm fi lm?
That depends on the subject.

Can you tell, while you are shooting, if you’re getting

something?
Oh, yes, I know. I know if it’s good as soon as I press the shutter.

Can you say anything about the number of good exposures,

good pictures, that you expect to get or that you get?
It depends entirely on the subject. With portraits, for example, you
may walk up to your subject and get the perfect picture with that first
shot. Or if you know you did not, then you must just snap and snap,
even though you know you’re not getting anything. And finally (if

20 1952
your subject is still frozen), you must say that it’s finished, that
you’ve had enough. Then the subject relaxes, drops his tension and
self-consciousness, and you have another chance to snap a good, lively
portrait—an artless picture.

How did you train yourself to hold the camera so still?

Well, I don’t know. I don’t drink and I don’t smoke either, but all the
same I am a bundle of nerves. It isn’t training or anything like that
that enables you to hold a camera so still. There is something that
helps in some situations: a small chest tripod, or better, a monopod.
A leg fits into a leather socket, which is on a strap around your neck,
and steadies the camera by supporting it on or against your chest.
I would say that many pictures are not sharp—not because they are
out of focus, but because even the smallest movement of the fi nger
pressing the shutter is often enough to make a well-focused picture
“unsharp.” For example, I was using the Leica Summarex 85 mm
at f/15, standing with one foot on the back of a chair and the other
foot just anywhere. I was not balanced. This was in India at the
time Gandhi was going to break his last fast—just before he died.
I got my picture, and it was blurry (shot at 1/15th of a second).
But it was rather nice, I think. Harper’s Bazaar used it as a
double-page spread. But blurry or not, sharp or not, a good picture
is a question of proportions, of connections between black and
white.

Did it take you a long time to move from black-and-white to

color, to translate its values?
No, I seemed to manage it as soon as I tried, thanks to my training in
painting. But it is difficult to shoot color and black-and-white on the
same story. [ . . . ]

Which lenses do you carry?

Always the Leica 50 mm, or the Nikkor f/1.5.

Richard L. Simon 21
On a story, which lenses do you bring?
The two 50 mm, the 35 mm, and a 135 mm. Nearly always I work
with standard lenses. For landscape, you often need a telephoto
(I usually use the 135 mm) so that you can get rid of the uninteresting
foreground. The depth of field of a telephoto lens is minimized for
action pictures. I don’t work much with a wide-angle lens. There are
so many things in the same plane that it makes it difficult to compose.

On a story, what equipment do you bring?

A 35 mm, a 135 mm, and two 50 mm. The Elmar f/3.5 if the weather
is good, and I always carry the f/1.5 in case of getting into a dark
spot.

Which do you prefer?

The Elmar f/3.5. It is easier to manage, lighter than the camera.
And for the average Leica user, I suggest sticking with that lens.
I like a camera held at eye level. For me, a picture depends on tiny
movements, and these I cannot see or get from a camera held on the
stomach. [ . . . ]

Then you regard a photographer as somewhat like a boxer,

who watches his opponent shift from foot to foot, shoulder
to shoulder, dodging about for just the right chance?
Yes, we should move only a little, up or down, side to side, just enough
to watch for the small movements, or changes in alignment in part
of the background. An advantage of the Rollei[flex] is that it is very
discreet, much quicker probably even than the Leica, I think. But
I couldn’t work with the Rollei, for the reasons I just gave you. The
Leica is an extension of my eye.

Why are lenses so important?

It is very important, I feel, having a few lenses in case composition
requires other focal lengths.

22 1952
From pressing the shutter one hundred times, how many
good pictures do you get?
It depends on the richness of the subject and the difficulty of getting it.

Do you use the 50 mm a great deal?

Yes.

Is there any picture in your books that posed a special

photographic problem, or about which you remember
particular conditions, exposures, etc.? What about that one
in a camp in India, where people are carrying . . .
That picture was taken with the 135 mm lens.

What about Banks of the Marne?9

That was taken with a wide angle . . . I have a precise memory of the
events surrounding each picture, no matter how long ago, or in which
country.

Some time ago, you compared yourself to an expert bridge

player who remembers all of the cards that each player had
in hand in every game.
When I returned to Paris from Africa, before I bought the Leica
and went to Marseilles, I took a trip around Europe with my Krauss
miniature. I remember exactly Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia—
because each time I pressed the shutter, it was a way of preserving
what was disappearing.

I notice that most of your pictures seem to have been taken

in an even light.
I am not a romantic. I like classicism. For me, the best movies are
still the old Chaplin films, where all the light comes from the same
side when it falls. I am not interested in the idea of creating an effect.
Besides, nothing then has the precision of actual life.

Richard L. Simon 23
Was it difficult to print the picture of the people coming
down the steps in India?
I don’t know, I didn’t print it. But I don’t think so. When I began with
the Leica, I used Perutz film and Persenso developer. After that, I
used Agfa ISS. I was always interested in getting the most sensitive
film. I am not bothered by grain. I don’t mind it. I always did my own
developing when I was traveling, in the hotel sink, and changed the
film under the bedcovers.

Do you overexpose and underdevelop, or underexpose and

overdevelop?
It is impossible with thirty-six images in a roll. And I don’t believe
in that. I always develop normally, with normal exposure. If you push
too much when developing, you kill the grays. And the grays are very
important.

What kind of fi lm do you like best?

With Ilford HP3, I can gain 1½ stops, sometimes two full stops, with a
special high-sensitivity developer.

What paper do you like?

I prefer semi-matte to glossy. I have no preference for a paper brand.
The Paris lab that does my printing uses Ilford Bromide for reportage
work; and Ilford Velvet (non-glossy) for exhibition prints. The prints
are dried by putting them on hot drums, but without glazing. Some
of the papers are difficult to get here. Sometimes the lab uses Kodak
from the States, and sometimes French Kodak. I think they prefer
Ilford Bromide.

In general, what kind of fi lm do you prefer to use?

In the United States, I used [Kodak] Super XX film and was satisfied
with it, but always looked for faster film. Then I found Ilford HP3
(125 Weston), which is actually faster, but can also be pushed with a

24 1952
special developer. The Paris lab that does all my work uses Normal
developer 777, made by Harvey Photo Chemicals in New Jersey. To
push it, they use D-76 or Bromicol from May and Baker in London.

What about darkroom work, developing and printing?

You cannot give developing work to just anybody. Whoever it is should
first know you and get used to your kind of work, and find out your
development and printing preferences. Then you should always work
with the same people.
I used Leco while in the United States. The first time I went
there, Ilse, who was doing my work, said to me: “Deep blacks, high
key, low key . . . ,” and I said: “Now wait a minute. I don’t know—and
I don’t want to know—how to understand all that gibberish.” And I
don’t. I simply want the picture to be as I saw it. A lab technician’s
job, without all that fancy talk, is to reconstruct things the way they
were at the time when I saw them.
It is important to tell the lab if, for instance, a picture was
taken at six o’clock in the evening. Otherwise they might think it is
underexposed and try to correct it, and then there is an entirely false
impression, and you have lost the mood and light of six o’clock and
you do not have what you saw then, as it was.
For darkroom work you should get someone you know is a
conscientious technician, and then get to know one another. Magnum’s
lab in Paris knows exactly what is the style and desire of each of us.
And a good lab can do the job even better than I can, or, perhaps, any
photographer can.

Draeger will produce [photogravures] from negatives for

your book [Images à la sauvette/The Decisive Moment].10
Will you have to be present at the lab when it is done?
Yes, though I will probably not go myself: my Paris lab technician
will go. He knows my work and desires, and he can best deal with the
problems arising with another lab.

Richard L. Simon 25
Can you do dodging on a [photogravure] plate? What kind
of acrobatics will be necessary?
They will have quite a lot to do. In a good darkroom, working with
pictures is a little like being an orchestra conductor: keeping the little
flute down, or bringing up the big horns. It is a symphony of common
endeavor.

Do you compare your work with a particular music, or

school of music?
No. You must nourish your mind constantly with music, art, painting.
I don’t think of my work as music. But I have a passion for Bach and
Mozart, for their clarity. They are not romantics. In painting, I like
Paolo Uccello, Titian, Piero della Francesca, Cézanne, Seurat, Goya,
and Daumier (see, no romantics here). [ . . . ]

Do you see any relationship between photography and

politics?
I believe we can talk in terms of humanity only. One’s conception
of the world is implicated in everything one does. It’s impossible
to limit a subject that way; it’s all part of the same thing. To have
lasting value, anything has to go through the whole process of human
emotions—to reach a definite value. Politics is only a reflection of a
given situation. Most pictures are beyond your comprehension at the
time you take them—that is to say, you have no way of knowing their
exact implications, when they will take on their complete meaning.
You work instinctively.
The picture of the old lady in the checkered coat sitting on a
bench in Hyde Park is the same thing. I came upon her sitting there,
I caught my breath and I took the picture. I do not know anything about
her, her name, why she is sitting there, or anything about it. But I saw
her and I had to take the picture. [ . . . ]
The political aspect is only one component among many
others. Once, I saw a precise thing, a thing that really cannot be

26 1952
photographed perhaps, or written about. It was on the story on the
king’s death in London [George VI died February 6, 1952]. The
newspaper headlines were loud, there was an odd lack of restraint
(for the British), and accounts on the radio and in newspapers
and magazines were rather maudlin. But one evening at dusk, the
people waited outside Clarence House for the arrival of the queen
[Elizabeth II], who had just come back by plane. A car turned and
cleared a path through the crowd. And in that instant, as the queen
rode by the crowd in her car, people caught their breath. The sound
was a simple “Ah!” They all, collectively, caught their breath. And
that was the thing that told the story of the English and the death
of a king, and a princess becoming a queen. It was the decisive
moment.

You don’t use a light meter?

I have one, but I rarely use it. Only when light conditions are difficult.
I should be able to know the light. It is a thing that’s instinctive.

What about fi lters?

I don’t use them. All my fi lms are so sensitive and fi lters distort
things.
[Aside:] When I walk around with my Leica, I always keep it
set between F-11 and F-8 at 1/100th. This is a suitable average, an
approximate thing. And for distance, I set it at about ten feet [three
meters]. Because you never know when you are going to see a picture,
and you must be ready for surprises. In that way, the depth of field is
enough to get almost anything in good light conditions. And at least
I am more or less ready.
I don’t think of myself as a photographer. I don’t think about it at
all. I enjoy snapping away, but there is much that must be instinctive.
I can’t say how one gets it. On a big story I carry two cameras, both
loaded with black-and-white, so that if I get very busy, I don’t have
to reload before I have done seventy-two frames. I buy film in bulk.

Richard L. Simon 27
You see, I don’t like to carry film, equipment, and I can just take a
hundred feet [thirty meters] of film so I can deal with it in my hotel.
This way, I have nothing to carry.
It is pleasant to work in a team, with other photographers. But
I prefer not to have any researchers, except on difficult or rush stories,
and I never take any friends along. Of course, in certain cases,
one must have a researcher to make note of events, when names or
actions are important. But one must have privacy. If you have a friend
along, you are bound to have a conversation, and then you will miss
something.
There is a tension that comes with searching, and you should be
alone with it: you must search. Photography is very difficult.

How do you feel about artistic, as opposed to documentary,

photography?
That means nothing to me. I believe photographs should be taken, and
should be reproduced, for the masses, not for collectors. For that is
part of the strength and validity of the science of photography: that it
can be reproduced.
I feel there are some great photographers, who are part of a family.
I like [William] Eugene Smith, [Robert] Capa (for his tremendous
sense of movement), Brassaï, [Robert] Doisneau, Dave [David Douglas]
Duncan, Carl Mydans. But above all, I rank Edward Weston very
highly.
To sum up: the Leica is, to me, a combination of the idea of the
8-by-10 plate camera, where you have time—plenty of time—and can
prepare your composition on a large glass plate, and the ability to trap
the decisive moment, which is made possible with 35 mm. You must
be happy with your camera. [ . . . ]
I don’t think you can take good pictures if you are taking them
with a purpose in mind. For instance, stylization is the sad result of
a systematic approach to composition, instead of intuition. The only

28 1952
art is in the humanity of your thinking, how you look at things, and
the coincidence of being in a certain place at a certain time.

Note: This interview, conducted originally in English, was drawn from a typewritten,
hand-annotated document in the archives of Richard L. Simon at Columbia University
Book and Manuscript Library, New York.

Richard L. Simon 29
Conversation

Interview with
Byron Dobell (1957)
 A Photographic Diary

In addition to the plastic aspects, which are close to my concern

with painting, photography is my way of keeping a diary. I keep a
photographic diary of what I see and may take pictures at any time.
I’m just a witness of things that attract my eye. [ . . . ] If there is a
story, I am excited about that story and I simply record what I am
witness to. People may ask me: “Which of your pictures do you like
best?” I’m not interested in that—I am interested in my next picture
or the next place I’m going to be. And for me, each new project must
be approached as a new experience. Former achievements don’t count
in the least and everything must once more be put into question. Only
in this way can you keep a fresh eye in your work.

Prejudice and Misconceptions

Although you must have an understanding of your subject in its

various aspects, you must not prejudge it. You must do completely
what you have to do. I never look at other photographs of a subject
I have to shoot; I want to keep my impressions fresh. But by talking
to people, listening to them, putting questions to them, one tries
to understand the situation. When you come to a place you must
not be prejudiced, you mustn’t try to fi nd justifications for your
preconceptions. You must stick to the facts, know how to analyze the
facts, modifying your fi rst impressions by what you have observed,
instead of strengthening your preconceptions. After all, there is no
point to be proved; you’re not trying to prove anything. If there is
one point, it’s humanity, it’s life, the richness of life. The thing is
simply to be sensitive. For me, the great myth is the Greek myth of
Antaeus, who had to touch Earth to regain his strength. I know I
must always keep in contact with the concrete, concrete reality, the
small incident and the small, specific truth, which might have wide
reverberations.

32 1957
 The Mystery of Personality

For the photographer, geometry is the abstraction and the structure

that is provided. Realism is the flesh and blood that brings it to life.
Still, the picture must never be contrived. You must recognize both
these elements intuitively. The picture projects the photographer’s
personality. That’s why there is no competition in our work. The only
competition may be in the marketplace. Competition does not exist
because people see things so differently, with each expressing his own
personality. This is part of the total reality, and therefore makes the
photographer both a witness and a participant.
I was working recently with a young Life photographer in
Washington, D.C. Well, we shot the same things, and when I saw
his photographs (excellent ones), they were totally different. We are
different people.

The Magazines

The important thing about our relationship with the press is that they
provide us with the possibility of being in close contact with life’s
events. What is most gratifying for a photographer is not recognition,
success, and so forth. It’s communication: what you say can mean
something to other people, it can be of a certain importance. We have
a great responsibility and must be extremely honest with what we see.
We must not self-censor while shooting, and the magazines, when they
use our material, must keep the general spirit that prevailed at the
time of the shooting. The pictures have to remain within context.
In that respect, Magnum’s role is fundamental, because there is
somebody who represents our thinking when we may be thousands
and thousands of miles away. For what is most important is that
a picture—which is a verb, an adjective, or a small link in the
sentence—should remain that small link and not be exaggerated.
The tone, the intonation, is important. And the editors should keep

Byron Dobell 33
the same intonation in publishing what we witnessed on the spot, not
using a soft or forte pedal. Because after all, the editors are in a way
historians of the present, of actuality, of each day. And finally, the
photographer’s task is not to prove anything about a human event. We
are not advertisers; we’re witnesses of the transitory.

About Magnum

When I started in photography there were no picture magazines.

I worked for myself, and it’s not very satisfying doing something
just for yourself. I believe creative work needs communication.
So it’s extremely encouraging to be with a group of people who
form a community and to know that you’re not isolated, although
as individuals we must always work in an inner silence. Naturally,
there’s a market problem, since everyone has to subsist; it’s expensive
to travel and so on . . . That’s one aspect of it, and it takes us a lot of
time to look into these matters; but we have the most freedom one can
have. [ . . . ] Nobody at Magnum decides for the other what he should
do and everyone is free to tell someone else: “Well, what about this
story? I don’t like it for this and that reason—because of this picture.”
It is extremely fruitful to have somebody to talk to as an equal. This
give and take is a most profitable thing because we keep learning
from each other. I keep learning from the younger members just as
I learned from Bob [Robert] Capa and Chim [David Seymour] how
to make picture stories. Cornell Capa, for instance, has a very keen
journalistic sense; and as for the other photographers, each makes
his own contribution. Everybody in Magnum has full freedom; there’s
no doctrine, there is no school, but there is something that unites all
of us very strongly—I can’t define it; it may be a certain feeling of
freedom and a respect for reality. When I was taking pictures four
months ago at the Parke-Bernet [auction house], a lady asked me:
“Are you with the press?” Now, as a man from Normandy, I don’t like
unsubtle, straight answers—it’s not polite to answer “yes” or “no.”

34 1957
So I told her: “I’m just a maniac.” And this lady said: “Oh, that’s
perfectly all right.” It is an obsession and that’s all. It is also, as a
friend of mine once told me, a dur plaisir [hard pleasure]. I think you
have to do things with passion.

Assignments

An assignment simply means, for me, that I am concentrating on

one subject. And you have to be very careful about the subject you
select. I like to be where there is a situation that is real. When it’s a
real situation, I am happy. When it’s phony, I can’t do anything. I’m
embarrassed, I’m ashamed, I do lousy work and say to myself: “What
am I doing here? Let me go and paint instead of doing stuff like this.”
When things present themselves, we must grab them. You must have
full consciousness and awareness. Things are interesting depending
on the interest you grant them. As the French say: “In some inns,
you can bring your own lunch.” Everything is interesting when it
transcribes a true situation. When it’s phony all you can do is explain
its phoniness.

The News

We often photograph events that are called “news,” but some tell
the news step by step and in detail, as if making an accountant’s
statement. Such press photographers, unfortunately, approach an
event in a most pedestrian way. It’s like reading the details of the
Battle of Waterloo by some historian: so many guns were there, so many
men were wounded. You read the account as if it was a catalogue. But
on the other hand, if you read Stendhal’s Charterhouse of Parma,
you are inside the battle and you live the small, significant details.
That is what we are doing: in our type of work, a striking detail may
say all at once: “This is it, this is life.” So many magazines—instead
of using the photographic medium, which in itself creates a visual

Byron Dobell 35
atmosphere—just go into ponderous, didactic explanations. What is a
picture story? Life isn’t made of stories that you cut into slices like an
apple pie. There’s no standard way of approaching a story. We have to
evoke a situation, a truth. This is the poetry of life’s reality.

Approach to the Subject

Of course, I cannot see myself working, any more than I can really
hear my own voice, but friends of mine tell me it’s very funny to see
me at work: jumping, tiptoeing, creeping up to people, or shying away.
Sometimes people are not aware at all; other times they are aware,
and then you must wait and look elsewhere and hope they’ll go back
to what they were doing. It’s as if you have thrown a stone in the
water. You sometimes have to wait until all the waves are gone until
the fish come back again. But very often your only opportunity is the
first time. That’s how it was in China—there was no second chance
because they see you from miles away, before you can even take a
light meter out. If you do, you’ve ruined the picture. You have to have
some psychological insight, you have to know the people and you must
work in a way that’s acceptable to them. There you must smile—never
laugh, because that’s considered making fun. Smile, take your time,
and never come bursting in with your own personality. You have to lie
low. Of course you can push and perhaps raise your voice a notch, but
it’s like blowing a horn. You have to approach on tiptoe. You must be
like a sensitive emulsion, a sensitive plate. Approach gently, tenderly,
and never intrude, never push. Otherwise, if you use your elbows, it
will work against you. Above all, be human!

Desire for Anonymity

I am suspicious of celebrity and things like that. In medieval times,

when a sculptor created a work, it had the same value to him whether
it was placed on the porch of a cathedral or in the towers where

36 1957
nobody would see it except God. All this competitive talk about who
is the most successful—that’s all rubbish. It kills something. How
can you keep a fresh eye and run along in this competitive world? It’s
impossible.

Technical Details of Photography

When people ask: “Henri, what’s your lens aperture?” it’s exactly like
asking a cook how many ounces of salt she puts in her cake. She just
takes a pinch of salt and adds it, that’s all. For example, I’m always
amazed at typists who don’t look at the keyboard. Me, when I type,
I have to look. Now, I use all my fingers (which is an improvement,
I think), but still I have to look at the keyboard. Well, with the camera
it’s the same thing. I don’t look at it or consider all the technical
details.

Contact Sheet

A contact sheet is so interesting, because you see how a photographer

thinks. He comes closer and closer to a subject, corrects it, looks at it
again, and then with tiny movements turns around until it is in exactly
the right and exact relation to him. Contact sheets may be compared
to the way you drive a nail into a plank. First you give several light taps to
build up a rhythm and align the nail with the wood. Then, much more
quickly, and with as few strokes as possible, you hit the nail forcefully
on the head and drive it in.

Cropping

In photographic composition—as in other visual techniques, like

painting and drawing—there is a necessity, and that’s why in a
good picture, there is nothing you can crop. It is simply there, and
everything is in its place. If it’s not a good picture you can go to the

Byron Dobell 37
darkroom but nothing will fix it. You can go back to the subject and
say: “Please, Mister, do it again, that smile you had.” But you’ll never
get it again.

Cynicism and Photography

I think cynicism is the worst thing because it kills everything. There’s

no more honesty, no more poetry, no more freshness. Cynicism is the
worst thing—a kind of smart person who’s got all the answers. This
is death. It kills creation. There’s no love, no tenderness, nothing at
all left. There’s no hatred even, nothing. Equally dangerous is the
detached attitude that says, “Everything is fun!”

The Future of Photography

As long as human beings are alive and there are real problems
that are vital, important, and someone wishes to express them with
simplicity and sincerity, or with fun and humor, there will be a place
for photographers, just as there will be for poets and novelists.

At the conclusion of this interview, Cartier-Bresson read a passage

from the final paragraphs of his foreword to The Decisive Moment.
He felt that this formal statement should accompany the more loosely
woven fabric of the conversational excerpts above:

To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction

of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise
organization of forms which give that event its proper expression.
I believe that, through the act of living, the discovery of oneself
is made concurrently with the discovery of the world around us which
can mold us, but which can also be affected by us. A balance must
be established between these two worlds—the one inside us and the
one outside us. As the result of a constant reciprocal process, both of

38 1957
these worlds come to form a single one. And this is the world that we
must communicate.
But this takes care only of the content of the picture. For me,
content cannot be separated from form. By form, I mean a rigorous
organization of the interplay of surfaces, lines, and values. It is in
this organization alone that our conceptions and emotions become
concrete and communicable. In photography, visual organization can
stem only from a developed instinct.11

This interview, conducted May 24, 1957, was first published as “A Conversation

with Henri Cartier-Bresson,” by Byron Dobell, Popular Photography 40, no. 9
(September 1957): 130–32.

Byron Dobell 39
To Seize Life

Interview with
Yvonne Baby (1961)
I knew his vanishing act,12 his anonymous, gray silhouette that slips
through the crowd, his supple and fast gait, the charm of his smile,
the innocence of his blue eyes. I had noted the mobility of his gestures,
never hindered by the Leica that he always brings along at all times
and everywhere. He had the tense face and concentrated expression
of those who listen and observe while also pursuing an obsession, a
dream, an idea.
To friends who wanted to see his work, I heard him say: “Really,
isn’t this boring for you?” As opposed to the amateur, who is always
ready to organize photographic evenings on the theme of tourism,
family, and summer holidays.
Attentive, Henri Cartier-Bresson asked for an opinion, constantly
asked questions, but you could feel his serenity, mixed with his anxiety:
he was the man who doubts and who knows. He talked little, never
about photography, to which he has dedicated most of his life over the
past thirty years.
I saw him again in Paris, in the silent atmosphere of his studio,
open to the sky and the slate roofs.
He was coming back from London, taking a train to Italy that
very evening before leaving France until the month of September. As a
reporter, he travels a lot, but denies being a “globetrotter.”

This 1/25th of a Second

“Of course,” he says, “I am curious, and when I arrive in a place,

I like to see and understand what happens around me. However, I
need to travel slowly and I avoid plane trips. A photographer must
not run but walk, tirelessly. Then he can seize what is on offer on the
pavement, at the street corner, in life.
“For an assignment, you must not impose the preconceived idea
you could have of a country, but on the contrary, correct it. The
subject takes on importance and the photograph takes on strength
only if you succeed in forgetting yourself. Only through that attitude

42 1961
can you succeed in touching something sensitive. I know, there are
hustlers and the illusions they create. But I am convinced that a
hustler’s thoughts are not enough to provide a point of view for a man
and his country.”

Henri Cartier-Bresson’s staccato voice is well suited to his nervousness.

Sometimes he searches for a word, then very quickly corrects himself,
doubles back on a sentence, smiles, and says: “You understand?” He
avoids anecdote, does not recount details of his life, and adds that his
biography can be found at the Magnum Photos agency.
“For me,” he says, “photography is a way of drawing. I use
the camera to look in a mechanical and optical fashion to gather
evidence. Photography is made here and now. You have no right
to manipulate or cheat. We must constantly fight against time.
What disappears has disappeared forever. It is about seizing the
immediate, the fleeting gesture, the smile that cannot be replicated.
For this reason I am very nervous—it’s awful for my friends—but
permanent tension is the only way to grip reality.
“My photos are variations on the same theme, and I circle around
the subject like a boxing referee. We are passive when confronted with
a world in movement; and our only creative moment is this 1/25th of a
second when we press the button, this shifting instant when the blade
falls. We can be compared to shooters who ‘fire’ their rifle shot.
“We must think before and after, never while taking a picture.
Our success depends on sharpness, clarity, knowledge, but each time
a photograph is planned, elaborated, it becomes stuck in clichés.”

Never the Flash

Yvonne Baby: What is the relationship between painting

and photography?
Henri Cartier-Bresson: Painters and photographers have to face the
same rules in composition, the same visual problems. As on a canvas,

Yvonne Baby 43
you can recognize, with a successful photograph, the square inscribed
in the rectangle, etc. This is why I like the [24-by-36-mm] rectangular
format of the Leica. I have a passion for geometry, and joy comes when
I am surprised by a beautiful composition of shapes. This is the only
way the subject takes on significance and seriousness. I never crop a
photograph. If I have to reframe it, it means it is bad and nothing can
fix it. The only improvement would have been to take one more in the
right place, at the right moment. With our camera we situate ourselves
in time, in space, and at the same time spiritually with relation to the
subject. This immediate combination seems essential to me.
For us, distance is also very important, and moving from one
point to another, relationships change as noticeably as the tone of a
voice heard from far or close. However, unlike the painter who can
work on a canvas, we proceed by instinct and intuition, within the
instant. We “seize” precise details, and we are analytical. The painter
operates through meditation and synthesis.
I do not use color because, in the current state of its development,
I cannot control it completely. When ceaselessly tackling a moving
reality, it seems to me impossible to reconcile the contradiction
between tone and color. So I prefer to continue working in black-and-
white, which is a transposition. I have never owned a flash, as it would
be, in my mind, like firing a revolver in a concert.
There are photographers who invent, others who discover.
Personally, I am interested in discoveries, not for the trials or
experiences but to capture life itself. I flee from the dangers of the
anecdote and the picturesque, which are very easy and better than the
sensational, but quite as bad. To my mind, photography has the power
to evoke, and must not simply document. We have to be abstract, just
like nature.
Anybody can take photographs. I have seen in the Herald Tribune
some taken by a monkey that managed, with a Polaroid camera, as
well as some camera owners. It is precisely because our profession

44 1961
is open to everyone that it remains, in spite of its fascinating ease,
extremely difficult.

Why did you choose it?

Photography affords me an immediate grip on the world, which
I can record through a specific, significant detail. It is a way of
understanding and a way of living more intensely. I love the contact
sheet, where a series of images shows how a photographer moves around in
life. I have a lot of fun and I work for the subject, not for the magazine.
I do not refuse assignments. Who, during the Renaissance, would
have thought of holding them in contempt?
I was recently asked to illustrate the annual report for an
American bank. I don’t understand a thing about banks, and for ten
days I photographed everything I saw. I was told that my story was a
commentary on “white-collar workers.” That was the best compliment,
since I had essentially sought to portray the employees’ lives between
nine in the morning and six at night. I felt the same gratitude for the
bank that you might feel toward parents who brought a girl you are in
love with into the world.
I also did a story for the Mercedes factory. I chatted with the staff,
the engineers, and I realized that the power of the firm relied on two
notions: quality and tradition. Once while I was strolling in a garage,
I saw a guy who drew with a brush a tiny line of color on a 300 SL car.
After I had photographed it, I understood that I had touched on an
important point that expressed Mercedes’s quality well. I discovered
a notion of tradition among workers who were meeting for a reception
organized in the factory by the trainee school.
If I am asked about the photographer’s role in our times,
the power of the image and so on, I do not want to launch into
explanations. I only know that people who know how to look are
as rare as those who know how to listen. So many think with
concepts. . . .

Yvonne Baby 45
 [Here, Henri Cartier-Bresson pauses and says softly, as if to
himself:] It is beautiful to observe a painter who contemplates his
painting at length. . . .

“Hey! You, the Photographer!”

I have no “message” and no “mission.” I have a point of view.

Photography is a very important means of communication and we are
responsible to millions of people that we reach through our stories
published in the press. We must not play it low, underestimate the
audience; neither must we become too precious. Painters go from
creation to museums, and us from creation to consumption.
So everyone must be able to understand us, as everyone is
potentially an artist.
In 1946 [sic: 1947] Robert Capa, Chim [David Seymour], George
Rodger, and I founded Magnum Photos, so that our pictures would
be in a cooperative. For us, it was a way of being independent and, at
the same time, to have an office that would deal with commercial and
administrative questions. Capa blew up on a mine in Indochina and, the
same day, another of my colleagues, Werner Bischof, fell into a ravine
in Peru. Chim was killed in Suez, and now we are around twenty
people with seven different nationalities who continue to record what
is happening in the world. We do not belong to a school, but we
share a common view about the photographer’s responsibility. It is
our work only that finances the agency. I think that you feel nimble
and independent-minded when you do not get a check at the end of
the month.
We belong to a very small profession. If we arrive in a place
where they know us, if we are sent by a big magazine, then they
roll out the red carpet for us; if not, we are welcomed like the
guy who comes to repair the toilet flusher and might steal the ashtray.
Our profession is not very well respected. They say: “Hey! You, the
photographer!” And then: “Send me those pictures.” Why don’t they

46 1961
think of asking ten thousand francs from the banker who handles so
much money?
Photographers do not have a precise social status: they are
marginal, and people often wonder who are these weird guys who
jump around them in the street.

Reading Saint-Simon13

Do you regret being marginalized?

Not at all. I don’t want to be recognized and I am often mistaken for
a German or an Englishman. If by any chance someone discovers
who you are, he says: “Here is so and so,” and they take a picture.
It is fantastic that there are so many tourists with cameras. Thanks
to them you can mingle with the crowd and look around, work with
a certain quiet. It also seems important to me, in these times when
people often tend toward self-aggrandizement, that a great number of
photographers have a common sensibility and an almost anonymous
appearance. You must remain light. (I always have a camera with
me, and I carry two more lenses only when I’m on assignment), and
approach stealthily:14 when you’re fishing, you mustn’t stir up the
water.
Once when I was photographing at a jewelry auction, a lady
anxiously came up to me. She wanted to know if I was with the
press. Because I come from Normandy, I did not answer yes or no,
but: “I am a maniac.” “Very well,” the lady said, “carry on.” It’s
true: photography is a mania for me, an obsession, a fanatisme.
What I know about photography, I learned by painting in André
Lhote’s studio, by reading Saint-Simon, Stendhal, James Joyce,
the newspaper Le Monde, and by benefiting from my colleagues’
criticisms. I read Le Monde, the New York Times, the Observer,
the Manchester Guardian—because they don’t run pictures. The
pictures I will fi nd for myself; I prefer to read about the analysis of a
situation, so that I know where to go.

Yvonne Baby 47
 I am encouraged by the work of Brassaï, William Eugene Smith,
and many young photographers from Magnum and elsewhere, Man
Ray’s portraits—but when I see bad photographs, I become sad, and
to set things straight, I go look at paintings.
From all these photographic documents, what will be left? As for
me, I think only about the next photograph. This morning I went out,
and I took two pictures near the métro. This way I keep an intimate
diary and I make sketches. Great photographs are rare; if I am asked:
“How many pictures do you take in a day?” I can only answer: “How
many interesting things did you hear today, and did you write them
down?”
I do not believe in inspiration.
I am convinced that you have to work, work. But a friend with
whom I was talking about this said to me: “In fact, you aren’t working,
you take deep pleasure. . . .”
I love principles; I hate rules. When I go to the movies, they
always ask me if I liked the [cinematography]. Why? I am interested
in the film story—just as on the street, I think about what I’m seeing.

In front of pink-and-brown Indian wall hangings, Henri Cartier-

Bresson has gone from the sofa to the chair, more at ease standing
than sitting. Sometimes, he tilts his head slightly, blinking as if
looking at a painting, as if he were trying to take a picture.

“If I left my profession,” he says, “I would probably paint. But,”

he adds, “I cannot do two things at once that are so close yet so
contradictory.”

First published as Yvonne Baby, “Le ‘dur plaisir’ de Henri Cartier-Bresson,” L’Express
no. 524 (June 29, 1961): 34–35. The conversation was revised by Yvonne Baby for its
republication in the French edition of this volume.

48 1961
It Jumps Out of You

Interview with
Sheila Turner-Seed (1973)
Henri Cartier-Bresson: When I was in the Soviet Union working on
my book [À propos de l’URSS/About Russia],15 I was asked to talk
with Soviet photographers. I thought there would be about thirty
photographers, and instead, three hundred came. They started
taking pictures of me, and I got frantic; my wife said I was getting
hysterical. I raised my voice and became very angry and finally they
put down their cameras, very obediently and very sweetly, and they
asked questions. There weren’t any stupid questions. One man asked:
“Does Cartier-Bresson photograph his dreams?” Everybody burst out
laughing, but I jumped on that and said: “Sure!” And we spoke about
intuition, about coherence and incoherence. It was important, I think,
to rise up against dogmatism and talk about intuition: what you dream
about, what comes out of you when you don’t know it. For me, that’s
one of the great things about photography. It’s a little like when you
draw or paint. You see the painting creating itself under your fingers.
It’s a whole process of being on the same wavelength with people, with
things, with your work.
I’m not interested in documenting. Documenting is extremely
dull and I’m a very bad reporter and photojournalist. When I had an
exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1946 [sic:
1947],16 my friend Robert Capa told me: “Henri, be very careful. You
must not be labeled as a Surrealist photographer. If you are, you won’t
have any assignments and you’ll be like a hothouse plant. Do whatever
you like, but the label should be photojournalist.” Capa was very
pragmatic. So I never mention Surrealism. That’s my private business.
And what I want, what I am looking for, that’s my business. Otherwise
I never would have an assignment.
Journalism is a way of taking notes—well, some journalists are
wonderful writers and others are just listing facts one after the other.
And facts are not interesting. It’s the point of view about facts that’s
important.
In photography, there is evocation. Some photographs are like a
Chekhov or a Maupassant short story. They are fleeting and there’s a

50 1973
whole world within them. But one is not conscious of that while shooting.
That’s the wonderful thing with the camera. It jumps out of you.
I’m extremely impulsive. It’s really a pain in the neck for my
friends and family. I am a bundle of nerves. But I take advantage of it
in photography. I never think. I act, quick! I shoot!
Photography, the way I think of it, is a drawing. A freehand,
immediate sketch, made with intuition and that you can’t correct. If
you have to correct it, it’s with the next picture. But life is very fluid;
sometimes the pictures disappear, and there’s nothing you can do. You
can’t tell the person: “Oh please, smile again. Do that gesture again.”
Life is once and for all, and it’s new every time.

Sheila Turner-Seed: How did you get started in

photography?
When I was very young, I liked the life of adventure and I was
appalled by the idea of working in the family textile business.
I had always been dreaming about painting, and my father said: “Well,
all right.” He was nice enough not to force me into the business.
So I studied for two years with André Lhote, who was not a great
painter but an important teacher. I learned everything from him
and from Jean Renoir, the filmmaker. But in terms of photography
I am not indebted to anyone, except for one picture by the Hungarian
photographer [Martin] Munkacsi of three kids running into a huge
wave on a beach. It is just perfect: the relationships, the composition,
the movement. That struck me above all. Otherwise, I have not been
influenced by photography. I just thought that the camera was a quick
way of drawing intuitively.

But at one point, did you decide that you were going to be a
photographer and not a painter?
No, I never decided anything. As a child, I photographed benches and
shadows, discovering what the camera could do. But it was not until
I was twenty in Marseilles, trying to recover from the blackwater fever

Sheila Turner-Seed 51
that I had contracted from a year’s travel in Africa, that I made some
of my first pictures that are in The Decisive Moment.
Photography was not respected in those days, and I couldn’t
sell the pictures. I lived in shabby hotels, I ate in bad restaurants,
and managed with the little money I had. Then, in 1934, I joined an
expedition to Mexico as a photographer. The expedition collapsed and
I ended up living in a slum, selling photographs to newspapers. When
I sold seventy-five pesos’ worth of photographs, it was wonderful.
From Mexico I went to America and learned to make movies with
Paul Strand. Then I returned to France in 1936 and became Jean
Renoir’s second assistant director. Working with him was an
extremely rich experience, and I stopped taking photographs for
years and years.

Did the experience of fi lms influence your style in

photography?
One has nothing to do with the other. I was working on dialogue,
finding the right words for the actors. I don’t like the technicalities
of a movie. And I have no imagination for inventing stories. I can
only make films from what I see. It is not my world. But the whole
experience of working with Renoir was wonderful. The way he treated
the actors, with such respect. The way he said “Yes, yes—that was
beautiful. Please try once more. Maybe you could do it that way.”
It was a polite way of saying, “Your interpretation stinks.” He could
squeeze an actor to the last drop. He loved the people he worked
with. [ . . . ] He was full of love, even if it was not easy to work with
him. I learned everything from him and André Lhote.

Do you think you see more now than you saw when you
started photography at twenty?
I see different things, I presume. But not more, not less. The best
pictures in The Decisive Moment were taken right away, after two
weeks. [ . . . ] That’s why teaching and learning don’t make sense.

52 1973
You must live and look. All these photography schools are a gimmick.
What are they teaching? Could you teach me how to walk?
These schools are phony. And it affects the way you work. To work
with people is different. That’s why I liked it so much when we started
Magnum, our photographers’ cooperative agency. We were working
together and criticizing and going at the same speed, some quicker,
some more slowly.

But do you think that a photographer’s art can grow

and mature?
Mature? What does that mean? It’s always about reexamining, trying
to be more lucid and freer, and go deeper and deeper. I don’t know
if photography is an art or not. I see children painting beautifully
and then at puberty sometimes a curtain drops. And then it takes a
lifetime to get back—not the purity of a child, because you never get
it back, once there is knowledge—but to get back the qualities of a
young child.

Josef Breitenbach, the photographer and teacher, once told

me that he felt most good photographers were good from
the beginning and growth was an absurd concept.
I agree. Either you have a gift or you don’t. If you do, it’s a
responsibility. You must work at it.

What made you decide to work in places like

China and India?
I think every place is interesting, even your own room. But at the
same time you can’t photograph everything you see. In some places
the pulse beats stronger than in others. After World War II, I had
a feeling, with Bob Capa and Chim [David Seymour], that going to
colonial countries was important. What changes were going to take
place there? That’s why I spent three years in the Far East. It was to
be present when a situation was pregnant, when there was the most

Sheila Turner-Seed 53
tension. When we started our picture agency, Magnum, in 1946
[sic: 1947],17 the world had been divided by war and there was great
curiosity from each country to know what the other looked like. People
couldn’t travel, and for us it was such a challenge to go and testify:
“I have seen this and I have seen that.” There was a market. We
didn’t have to do industrial accounts and all that.
Magnum is the fruit of Capa’s genius: he was very creative. He
played the horses to pay for our secretaries in the beginning. Once I
came back from the Far East and asked Capa for my money. He said:
“Better take your camera and go to work. I had to use your money
because we were almost bankrupt.” I almost got angry, but he was right.
He gave me no specific ideas for shooting, but ten ideas of where to go.
Out of these ten, five or six places were very bad, two were
excellent and one, fantastic! And it was like that. I kept on working.
Nowadays, working has become very difficult. There are hardly
any magazines, and no big magazine is going to send you to a country
because everyone has already been there. It’s another world. But
there are heaps of specialized magazines that are going to use your
archives. And you can make quite a decent living just with those. But
it means you have to build these archives for years. It is a problem for
young photographers who are just starting now.

Do you know what you want to do next?

This afternoon I would like to draw. I would like to draw much more
peacefully and I would like to see other photographers. It depends. I
never plan anything. You see, I feel lonely in a way. I mustn’t be nostalgic,
because, I mean, it was not easy between Capa, Chim, and me. We
were utterly different. We didn’t read the same books. Capa was
staying up at night and I had to wake him up at ten in the morning.
He was borrowing my money without telling me, these kinds of
things. But there was a fundamental unity between us three. Capa
was an optimist, Chim a pessimist. Chim was like a chess player or a
mathematician. I was impulsive.

54 1973
One gets the feeling that you miss them tremendously.
Well, it’s rather strange. I still don’t realize that Capa and Chim are
dead. Because in this profession we are gone for a year or two and we
don’t see each other. I understood that Capa was dead when [ten years
later] I saw the book Images of War.18 Before that he was not dead at
all, just someone I had not seen for some time.
There were not many photographers in Paris in the early 1930s.
We drank our cafés crèmes at Le Dome in Montparnasse. I was
painting in that neighborhood, which was very lively before the war.

Did your friendship with Capa and Chim influence your

decision to abandon painting in favor of photography?
Not at all. We never talked about photography. We talked about life.
We were thinking about where to go, and sometimes going together.
There wasn’t all that silly talk about photography like now. I never
dreamt of talking about all these things. It was only much later, in the
1950s, when we were doing The Decisive Moment as a coproduction
between Tériade, the great art publisher in France [at Verve], and
Simon and Schuster in the United States. Dick Simon came to Europe
and said: “We also need a text. And the text should be a ‘how to.’ ”
I didn’t insult him, but I got so red in the face that everybody was
embarrassed. And I said: “ ‘How to’—no way!” I got furious and was
ready to drop the whole project. And Tériade, putting on his beautiful
Greek smile, said: “Well, why don’t you tell why you have been
photographing for years and years? What does it all mean for you?”
And I said: “Why am I clicking away like this? I don’t know.” “Well,
try and find out,” Tériade said. “Marguerite Lang, my collaborator,
is going to write down what you say, and then we’ll see.” And then I
added: “It’s always good to clarify one’s thinking.” And I put it down
practically as it is in the book. We just corrected the French because
speaking and writing are not the same thing. Marguerite was telling
me: “What do you mean, exactly?” She was pushing me to review my
thinking, which is an extremely good exercise. But one should not be

Sheila Turner-Seed 55
talking too much about one’s work. Otherwise one becomes an
art critic.

What exactly do you mean by The Decisive Moment, the

[American] title of Images à la sauvette?
You want to know more about the title? Well, I had nothing to do with it. I
found a line in the memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, in which he said: “There
is nothing in this world which does not have a decisive moment.”19 I used
the quote [as an inscription] in the French edition, and when we were
thinking of titles [for the American edition], we had a whole page of
possibilities. Suddenly, Dick Simon said: “Why not use ‘the decisive
moment’?” It worked well, and so I became what’s known as a plagiarist.

Are you able to define the moment when you press the button?
Oh, yes. It’s a question of concentration. Concentrate, think, watch,
look, and hop, like this, you are ready. But you never know the apex
of an event [before it happens]. So you’re shooting, you say to yourself:
“Yes, yes, maybe, yes.” But you should never overshoot. It’s like
overeating or drinking too much. You have to eat, you have to drink,
but too much is too much. Because by the time you press the shutter,
and you are ready to shoot once more, maybe you have lost the picture
that was in-between.
The difference between a good picture and a mediocre picture is
a question of millimeters, a tiny difference. But it’s essential. I don’t
think there’s so much difference between photographers, but it’s that
tiny difference that counts, maybe.
Very often you don’t have to see a photographer’s pictures. Just by
watching him in the street you can see what kind of photographer he
is. Discreet, on tiptoes, fast, or like a machine gun? Well, you don’t
shoot partridges with a machine gun. You choose one partridge. Then
another partridge. Maybe the others are gone by then.
But I see people with a motor whirring. It’s incredible because
they always shoot at the wrong moment. I very much enjoy seeing

56 1973
a good photographer working. There’s an elegance to it, like in a
bullfight.
Street photography is a joy. But the most difficult thing for me is
the portrait. It’s not at all like an instant photograph of someone on
the street. The person must agree to be photographed. And it’s like a
biologist and his microscope. When you study something, it doesn’t
react the same way as when it’s not studied. And you have to try and
place your camera between a person’s skin and his shirt, which is not
an easy thing to do.
But the strange thing is that through your viewfinder, you
see people exposed. You steal something, and it’s sometimes very
embarrassing. I remember once I took a portrait of a famous writer.20
When I arrived at her home she said: “You took a very beautiful
portrait of me at the Libération.” The Libération of France was in
1945, a long time ago. So I thought: “She remembers that in those
days her face wasn’t the same. She is thinking of her wrinkles. Damn
it! What shall I say?” I started looking at her legs. She pulled her
dress down and said: “I’m in a hurry. How long will it take you?”
“Well, I don’t know,” I answered. “A little more than a dentist and a
little less than a psychoanalyst.” Maybe she did not have a sense of
humor. She just said: “Yes, yes, yes.” I clicked two, three times and
said good-bye, because I had said the wrong thing.
It is always difficult to talk at the same time you observe
someone’s face intensely. But still, you must establish a contact of
some kind. [To shoot] Ezra Pound’s [portrait], I stood in front of him
for maybe an hour and a half in utter silence. We were looking at
each other straight in the eye. He was rubbing his fingers. And I took
maybe one good photograph altogether, four other possible ones, and
two uninteresting ones. That amounts to about six pictures in an hour
and a half, and no embarrassment on either side.
You have to forget yourself. You have to be yourself, forget
yourself—the image comes much stronger if you get completely
involved in what you are doing. [ . . . ] And no thinking. Ideas are very

Sheila Turner-Seed 57
dangerous. You must think all the time, but when you photograph you
are not trying to prove a point or demonstrate something. You have
nothing to prove. It comes by itself. Photography is not propaganda,
but a way of shouting how you feel. It’s like the difference between
a propaganda tract and a novel. The novel has to go through all the
nerve pathways, through your imagination. It is much more powerful
than a leaflet that you glance at and then throw away.
And poetry is the essence of everything. Very often, I see
photographers cultivating the strangeness or awkwardness of a
scene, thinking that it’s poetry. No, poetry includes two elements
that are suddenly in conflict—a spark between two elements. But it
is very rarely a given and you can’t look for it. It is as if you were
looking for inspiration. No. It just comes by nurturing yourself and
living fully by submerging yourself in reality. If I go somewhere,
I am always hoping to get that one picture about which people will
say: “This is true. You felt it right.” But at the same time, I’m not a
political analyst or an economist. I don’t know how to count. [ . . . ]
I am obsessed by one thing: visual pleasure. The greatest joy for
me is geometry, which means structure. You can’t go looking for a
structure, shapes, patterns and all that, but you will feel a sensuous
pleasure, an intellectual pleasure at the same time, when you have
everything in the right place. It is the recognition of an order that is
in front of you. And finally—that’s just my way of feeling—I enjoy
shooting pictures. Being present. It’s a way of saying: “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
like the last words of Joyce’s Ulysses. [ . . . ] And there are no maybes.
All the maybes should go into the trash. Because it’s an instant. It’s a
moment. It’s a presence. It’s there. And it’s a tremendous enjoyment to
say: “Yes!” Even if it’s something you hate. “Yes!” It’s an affirmation.

This text is adapted from “Henri Cartier-Bresson: Interview with Sheila Turner-Seed,”
Popular Photography 74, no. 5 (May 1974): 108–17, 139, 142, 198, which was
excerpted from a conversation conducted in 1973.

58 1973
Only Geometricians
May Enter

Interview with
Yves Bourde (1974)
Yves Bourde: Painting—what does it mean for you?
Henri Cartier-Bresson: Painting has been my obsession since the
time when [Louis Cartier-Bresson], my “mythical father”—my
father’s brother—whom I knew from the time I was five years old,
brought me to his studio at Christmastime, 1913. There, I lived in an
atmosphere of painting, as I sniffed the canvasses. My uncle’s friend,
a pupil of [Fernand] Cormon, 21 introduced me to oil painting when
I was twelve years old. My father, too, was a very good draftsman,
but he wanted me to have a career in the textile industry, so I had
to go to HEC [École des Hautes Études Commerciales].22 I flunked
my baccalaureate three times, and his ambitions for me quickly
disappeared. Later on, from 1927 to 1928, I studied with André
Lhote. He taught me to read and write. His Traité du paysage et de la
figure (Treatise on landscape and figure painting) is a fundamental
book.23 He used to say: “If you have an instinct, you have a right to
work.” In front of some of my paintings, he would sometimes exclaim:
“Ah, little Surrealist! Your colors are pretty—go on!” I saw him again
shortly before he died. “Everything comes from your training as a
painter,” he said about my photographs. I left his studio because I did
not want to join this systematic frame of mind. I wanted to challenge
myself, be myself. . . . With Rimbaud, Joyce, and Lautréamont in
my pocket, I went off in search of adventure, and I earned a living
in Africa by hunting with an acetylene lamp. I made a clean break.
I wanted to say something and then—that’s it, no hanging about. To
paint and to change the world, these were the most important things
in my life.

You almost never stopped drawing, yet you waited until

1974 to publish a very small portion of these works. Why
is that?
I always harbored profound doubts about what I was doing. I thought
that I couldn’t draw. In 1932, I discovered this new optical and

60 1974
mechanical sketchbook—the camera—and making photographs took
up all my time. There was this hunger for the world, and that is one
of the reasons why the Magnum cooperative agency was founded,
with Bob [Robert] Capa, and David Seymour.24 Still, I kept looking
at painting; I spent hours in museums, but I didn’t produce anything.
I felt a bit frustrated because I was passionate about painting and I
knew the limits of photography. I really started again with gouaches
around 1962, and they were bad. In 1971 and 1972, they were too
meticulous and too small. Toward the end of 1972, my drawing really
got off the ground. But I still worked too fast. Using a camera for forty
years while being a bundle of nerves has its consequences. [Sam]
Szafran, the painter, scolds me: “To see reality fast, fast: another
aftereffect of photography!” In fact, to go fast, you have to proceed
very slowly. You have to observe, look at how things are happening,
understand and feel them, otherwise you run the risk of falling into
sham, and of stuttering. Drawing also comes from meditation. You
have to keep your impulsive side and simultaneously beware of the
tics. They can be found in drawing as in photography, in writing as in
speech. Tériade, who advises me on everything, suggested ten years
ago that I should give up photography. I did not follow that advice, but
I went and asked him if it was presumptuous to publish my paintings
and drawings. “Not at all!” he answered. “But I hope that nobody
will say: ‘Ah! He made a name for himself in photography, and now
he flogs his drawings!’ ” I am not looking for a career; I just want to
reexamine my vision.

We Are All Copycats

Alberto Giacometti was your friend. . . .

Alberto was an extraordinary draftsman. Once we played at writing,
each on his own side, the names of our favorite painters. We both had
Van Eyck, Cézanne, Paolo Uccello, and Piero della Francesca on our

Yves Bourde 61
list. Like Giacometti, I want to be as precise as possible, to create
abstraction from nature, as in photography, as in science, to discover
the world’s structure—enjoy the sensual delight of shape. I feel I
have things to say in drawing and in painting. It will not prevent me
from taking photographs, but I am not interested in that profession
anymore.

You are not interested in that profession anymore?

Seeing good pictures makes me feel like photographing: fi rst of all
the works of [André] Kertész, which are my “poetic source.” Then
those of [Josef] Koudelka, [Claude] Dityvon, Martine Franck, [Guy]
Le Querrec, Ian Berry, Gilles Peress, and [Leonard] Freed create
a space for emulation. You have to try and stay alive in front of
what you see, struggle with reality, get rid of habits and routines.
You have to train yourself to look all the time, swinging between
the conscious and the unconscious. In a sort of dance, I practice
immediate, automatic, and intuitive drawing. I get enormous joy
from it. But the fl aunting of reportage—getting into situations,
“working” a subject—that is not photography. Also, the mess
created by today’s world brings such an invasion of images!

Do you keep informed about what is happening in terms of

photography?
I hate looking at photography books or illustrated magazines. This
is not because of contempt. I’d rather look at contact sheets: that is
where you can sense the individual. Neither am I interested in my
own books or publications: it is enough that my photographs have
not been retouched or cropped, that they have been published
in their “integrity.” I am not interested in layout, no matter
how talented the artistic director is. A photograph can only be
corrected by making the next one, if reality allows it. The only
activity I get involved in, apart from shooting, is installing an
exhibition.

62 1974
Photography seems to be divided into two tendencies:
“fabricated”—that is, staged—and “taken”—captured.
Life is a bit like an operating table: everything is assembled, you
find a composition that is always richer than the product of one’s
imagination. All these images that are posed, staged, without any
sense of form, of dialectics, these images inherited from advertising,
such as the photographs of [Richard] Avedon, [Jean-Pierre] Sudre,
David Hamilton, Diane Arbus, Duane Michals, the recent works
of Bruce Davidson, and others.25 Their creators interest me from
a sociological and political point of view, because they represent
the outcome and the confusion of a certain Americanized world, a
world that is headed toward nothingness. Unfortunately, they don’t
revolutionize anything, they are part of a clearance-sale society.
They resemble a world without sex, without sensuality, without love.
They are scatological and coprophagous. They photograph only their
anxieties and their neuroses.
It is necessary to copy; we all are copycats, but it is nature
we have to copy—and when you press the shutter, you also paint
yourself.
For me, to be yourself is to be outside yourself. It’s like what
[Eugen] Herrigel describes: we reach ourselves by aiming at the
target—the outside world. These people aim only at their own
insides.26 They don’t even talk anymore about rhythm, about
Matila Gyka’s Golden Ratio, about Pythagoras. Who wrote in the
Renaissance: “Only geometricians may enter”?27

However, you are the president of the Fédération Française

des Associations de Photographes Créateurs [French
association of photographer-creators]. The FAPC does
not only have reporters as members, but also fashion and
publicity photographers. Isn’t that a contradiction?
I accepted the presidency of that federation because of necessity
and solidarity. I don’t want to be only an honorary president or a

Yves Bourde 63
figurehead, because I am deeply interested in the conditions and work
possibilities of my colleagues. The association exists so that it can
deal with all the photographers’ problems. We have to fight. Now that
the association has been created, maybe my role is finished and I
must retreat. . . . Accepting this role has been a way for me to “blow
them down.” Plus, I am marginalized, without a profession or a fi xed
home. We are marginal and we should not have to make concessions,
as these absurd laws [such as having to ask permission to take a
picture] would want to force us to: “Sir, may I go out? Sir, may I take
pictures? Sir, may I look with one eye, two eyes, a mechanical eye, or
a glass eye? . . .”

La photographie est-elle un art? (Is photography an art?)

is the title of a recently published book.28 Do you have an
answer to that question?
You can see how conservative people are. They do not reexamine
anything. Potentially, everybody is an artist: every human being is
sensitive; the difficulty resides in managing to express your sensibility,
and you succeed only by working at it. For me, photography means
concentration. Dabblers, gifted people, talented people, can be
found the world over. Talent, it’s rather dangerous. Cézanne was a
person who in actual fact did not have talent. [Christian] Bérard was
incredibly talented, but what remains of it? Do you need to pack things
into boxes, into cans, under labels? People talk about masterpieces,
mediocre art, decorative art—but then, where is the conception of
the world, of life, of human beings, this hierarchical classification?
Flaubert, Stendhal, hated that kind of world . . . I do not separate
photography from everything else. It is a means of visual expression.
But is it an art? In the end, what is an artist? You see publishers
coming up with series titled Absolute Masterpieces. How about
“Undeniable Masterpieces”? It’s wretched and mercenary. What is the
absolute?

64 1974
You frequently quote the book Zen in the Art of
Archery. . . .
This book, by Herrigel, which I discovered a few years ago, seems to
me fundamental to our profession as photographers. Matisse wrote
similarly about drawing: set a discipline, make rigor a rule, forget
oneself completely. And in photography the attitude must be the same:
detach oneself, do not try to prove anything at all. My sense of freedom
is the same: a frame that allows any variation. This is the basis of Zen
Buddhism, the evidence: that you go in with great force and then you
succeed in forgetting yourself.

The concept of the photographer as objective witness seems

to dominate the history of the illustrated press.
John Szarkowski, the curator of photography at the Museum of Modern
Art in New York, wrote that I used photojournalism but that I was
not a photojournalist at all. He is completely right. [Robert] Capa
told me: “Do not get labeled as a ‘photo-Surrealist’; rather, be a
‘photojournalist,’ and you will do what you want.” The press has
freed us, but also made us prisoners. When you try to “document,”
that’s when you are at your worst, and falling into that trap has also
happened to me. I do not try to accumulate evidence either. You have
to be sensitive, try to guess, be intuitive: trust the “objective chance”
[André] Breton talked about. And the camera is a wonderful tool to
seize this “objective chance.”
Photography does not want to say anything. It says nothing. It
proves nothing, no more and no less than a painting. It is completely
subjective. The only objectivity—and these are responsibilities I have
always taken on—is to be honest toward yourself and your subject.
Truth in itself does not exist, it always resides in a relationship. Our
task is only to establish relationships, extremely complicated, complex
ones. Poetry is in relationships, in the end, and together with painting
and love, this is the only thing that matters.

Yves Bourde 65
 A long time ago I took a photograph of Cardinal Pacelli [later
Pope Pius XII] surrounded by the faithful. My mother, a Christian
Democrat, considered it the most religious photograph ever, while
a friend, a member of the Travailleurs sans Dieu [Workers without
God], a 1930s [atheist and communist] organization, thought it was
the most antireligious photograph he knew. Eyewitnesses can’t be
trusted.
Giving photography that “proof” value has created competition
and “fake” photographs. When personal vision is involved, there is
no competition. What’s important are the small differences; “general
ideas” don’t mean a thing. Long live Stendhal and small details! A
millimeter creates a difference. The only thing proven by those who
deal in “proof” is that they have given up on life.

With only rare exceptions, you have never published color

photographs. . . .
Color, for me, remains painting’s domain. I photographed China
and the Seine in color for Paris Match, Life, and Stern, and
France for [publisher] Robert Laffont. It was because of professional
necessity: not a compromise, but a concession. My only good color
photograph was published on the cover of Camera, when I exhibited
at the Pavillon de Marsan [part of the Louvre] in 1955, but it had
no meaning—I had fallen into aestheticism. The [audio-] engineer
[Stefan] Kudelski29 is the only one who has given me an interesting
point of view on this. He explained that color allows for quicker
identification of a document. But this is another debate. I fi nd
emotion in black-and-white: it transposes, it is an abstraction, it is not
“normal.” Reality is a chaotic flood and, within that reality, you have
to make choices that bring together meaning and form in a balanced
manner—so if you have to worry about color on top of that . . . ! Plus,
“natural” colors don’t mean anything. With its asexual vision, color
delights only salesmen and magazines.

66 1974
 Seeing Is a Whole

What do you think about photography schools?

I am completely against them. Reportage techniques can be learned
very quickly. All you have to do is read the leaflet that comes with
the camera and the fi lm. A camera isn’t any more complicated
than a typewriter. The secret is to always work with the same fast
fi lm, in slightly gray weather. Sunshine is very inconvenient in
photography: it forces, it imposes. Slightly overcast weather allows
one to circle the subject freely, it is a visually malleable weather.
No need for the light meter: it makes the eye lazy; you have to fi rst
guess, then maybe you can check it. The rest cannot be taught.
Sharpness, intuition, geometry, they have to be kept alive. In the end,
photography is only an operation of the intelligence. It all depends
on the kind of foods you like. In the end, we are what we eat. Some
people prefer to be what they evacuate.
[Lucien] Clergue spoke to me once about a photography school,
and I asked him: “Do the students learn how to run?” Housewives
write to me: “My son was bad at his studies, but he loves
photography. . . .” I answer: “I must confess that I also was very bad
at my studies, but I don’t especially like photography. I just have fun
doing it.” In schools people are taught many subjects, so that they
learn to be good cogs. But learning to see . . .

You own a strange object: a wooden camera.

Saul Steinberg gave me that work, a magnificent object he invented:
a camera cut out from a block of wood, a hinge mimicking the
viewfinder, a large nut mimicking the lens. Looking, finding an order,
it almost becomes a goal in itself, a kind of absolute. It makes me
just as happy to pretend to photograph with that fake Leica as with a
real one. Of course, one has to communicate, and the camera makes
it possible to act, to witness, to speak up, and it is necessary for the

Yves Bourde 67
camera to be loaded with film, because we are politically involved.
But in the end, I couldn’t care less about the result. I am not a
photographer any more than I am a printmaker or a watercolorist. . . .
I am a bundle of nerves waiting for the moment, and it goes up, up,
up, and it bursts, it is a physical joy, a dance, time and space united.
Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Like the conclusion of Joyce’s Ulysses. Seeing
is a whole.
It is written in the gospel: “In the beginning there was the Word.”
Well for me: “In the beginning there was Geometry.” I spend my time
tracing, calculating proportions in small books with reproductions of
paintings that I never leave behind.
And that is what I recognize in reality: within all this chaos, there
is order.

First published as Yves Bourde, “Un entretien avec Henri Cartier-Bresson: “Nul ne peut
entrer ici s’il n’est géomètre,” Le Monde, no. 1,350 (September 5, 1974): 13.

68 1974
The Main Thing
Is Looking

Interview with
Alain Desvergnes (1979)
Alain Desvergnes: [Paul] Valéry said that you should
apologize when talking about painting. It could also be
said of photography: you should apologize when you talk
about it. It should be seen. Still, this does not go without
saying.
Henri Cartier-Bresson: But there is nothing to say. You have to look,
and looking is so difficult. We are used to thinking. We reflect all the
time, well or not, but people are not taught how to look. It takes a very
long time. Learning how to look requires an enormous amount of time.
A look that carries weight, an interrogatory gaze.

Do you think that our way of looking is distorted by today’s

lifestyle, by education?
Absolutely! We are marked by the world in which we live. It is a
world of greater and greater tensions, where the individual counts
less and less. To me, it seems a suicidal world. Whether it is left-wing
or right-wing plutonium, the way things are going, it is plutonium that
has a future.
There are other possible worlds, but how do we turn around?
I have no clue.
I am interested in only one aspect of photography. There are
many more, but the thing that moves me, that excites me, is looking
at life, a kind of never-ending questioning and an immediate answer.
What [André] Breton wrote in his Entretiens [Conversations; 1952]
about objective chance seems to apply exactly to what people call
photojournalism, reportage, and God knows what other names!30
This photography is a kind of intuitive thing that sticks to reality
and comes from a very deep place within; it is not about imposing
yourself.
[René] Char wrote somewhere about poetry that some people
invent and others discover.31 These are two very different worlds.
These two aspects also exist in photography. I am only interested in
people who discover; I feel solidarity for those who go for discoveries;

70 1979
for me, there is much more risk involved in that than in trying to
completely fabricate images. And in the end, reality is so much richer!

Do you think that the photographs you have created

through the years can be viewed as questions you asked
from the world, the environment, human beings and things?
I won’t give explanations. My photographs are there; I do not comment
on my photographs—I have nothing to say. People talk way too much,
“think” way too much. There are schools for everything, where you
can learn anything, and in the end know nothing, absolutely nothing.
There is no school for sensitivity. It does not exist. It is unthinkable.
You need a certain intellectual background. I won’t talk about
culture . . . but a desire to enrich your mind, and to live. Because
what’s wonderful in intuitive photography, it’s that vital reaction,
where you are yourself and at the same time forget yourself, so that
you can question reality or try to understand.

So these photographs have been, for you, as they say

stupidly, sources of culture. They have educated you.
Culture, art . . . I don’t know. I have lived. It’s living with intensity that’s
important, intensity of life. Now there is an awful segregation, they say
“young people,” “old people,” why not “blind photographers” too! This
is an absurd world! So this is reflected just about anywhere. Nobody is
pure, we are all involved in this world, even if we reject it.

Do you think that looking is a solution for rediscovery?

Life. It is life, looking, yes. Now, everyone has to learn math, they
believe that science is above everything; a museum curator also
has to be a mathematician. But there are other routes to knowledge.
Painting is a route to knowledge, poetry is a route to knowledge,
photography is a route to knowledge—science is not the only way.
Today, applications of poetry do not cause harm to man, while often
some of science’s applications. . . . Look at the fix we are in. . . .

Alain Desvergnes 71
I believe that rhythm plays an important part in your
images.
Rhythm, that is a specific visual art order. I love painting above all. I
was trained by a very good painter, a friend of an uncle who was killed
during the First World War, And when I was fi fteen I started painting.
My concern has always been painting, and these days I practice
drawing and photography. These are visual means of expression like
any others. In the old days, in the Middle Ages, a tambourine player
could also be a singer or play the lute, while nowadays we are so
specialized. It is a world of specialists, of technicians.

I believe drawing helps you a lot; you like practicing drawing.

Nowadays, yes, for the last seven or eight years I have been drawing
a great deal, I concentrate. There is no connection between drawing,
painting, and photography, except for looking; the main thing for
me is looking, but whether you use one tool or the other, it has
repercussions. Nothing can be done with impunity, and that same
nervousness necessary for photographing is a hindrance for drawing.
Drawing is a slow thing. You have to know how to go very slowly, so
that you can go fast.

Is it a good counterpoint for you, this slowness of drawing,

compared to photography’s speed?
Yes, absolutely, it makes it possible for me to challenge myself and not
always play the same record. To each his own problem. Mine is to go
further than I have already gone.

Your photographs are your own contribution to the modern

world, to the vision of it that you have.
The vision, I don’t know about that. It is like when you run, when you
sweat. I live and that’s what I do. I am not into real estate. I am not a
farmer. I don’t know how to do anything [else].

72 1979
But since your beginnings in the 1930s, many
photographers now, and certainly thanks to you, have
started photographing the world.
I have many fathers too. There is [Martin] Munkacsi, [André] Kertész,
Brassaï, who are my elders. I also have been deeply influenced
by Surrealism’s attitude to life—not the visual arts side, but the
Surrealists’ philosophy of life, Breton’s philosophy.

What do you think when you see so many thousands of

photographers nowadays? I believe that twelve billion
photographs are developed every year in the world.
There are more and more people on Earth, and we know the
number of square inches that everyone will have in a century;
it is a question of numbers. These are things that one feels
intuitively. But I leave it to the sociologists; my attention is
directed elsewhere. Nevertheless, I think that we all are amateur
sociologists or amateur psychoanalysts, because everyone is
implicated.

But these twelve billion photographs—perhaps it’s rather a

good thing?
I don’t think about photography. I never think about it; I take photos,
that’s different. I think about life; I think about form, I think about
what interests me, what shocks me.

And knowing that many people are trying to emulate you

nowadays . . . ?
Everyone must do what they feel like doing. Positive, negative,
I don’t know.

There are many who do. Is that a response to the difficult

world in which we live? Because a moment ago you were

Alain Desvergnes 73
talking about that difficult, hard world. Is pointing a
camera a gesture that can have meaning?
I don’t know, I can’t answer for others: one can answer only for oneself.
I love taking pictures. Once it is done, for me, the pleasure ends.
Well . . . I also feel excitement in front of a contact sheet, and
in front of pictures by other photographers that have been shot in
the same spirit as mine. But you cannot look at photographs all the
time. I prefer to look at life, go see what’s happening on the street.
But there is no rule; each person must fi nd his or her way, there are
a thousand ways. As for me, I find that you have to forget yourself
completely to be able to melt into places, to become like fish in
water.

If photography had not been the answer, what would you

have done instead?
Painting. But I find it difficult to do it at the same time as photography.
[Jacques-André] Boiffard was both a very good painter, and a
very good photographer. But I don’t know if he did the two things
at the same time. He was a friend of [Eli] Lotar. We are in the
same generation. Boiffard died a long time ago. As for me,
I cannot separate one from the other. One cannot do two things
at the same time. One has to take one’s time. This is what I blame
on our age. I have known the beautiful years when there was
curiosity for the world. Only in 1946 did I become a “professional”
photographer. Before that, I was taking photographs, but I didn’t
know what I was going to do, I still thought that I would be painting.
And for me, being a professional simply means that when you are
given an assignment, you have to deliver it on time, and do it for your
own pleasure. There was a curiosity in the world that had been cut
by war, there was no television, there were no media, there weren’t
so many people. Until 1950 it was still the nineteenth century. I
have been lucky to know that world. But nowadays everyone has

74 1979
been everywhere; there are travel agencies. It is an exponential
world.

If you had to choose one, which would you pick: the world
from before or today’s world?
Can I keep this to myself? Because it’s hard to go back. It is not a
matter of backtracking, but there are other possible worlds, other
human relationships. There is the respect for the individual. There
have been other societies than ours. We are led to believe that this is
a perfect society, but it isn’t at all. Other human relationships have
existed. We have to ask the ethnologists.

The fête de l’image [slide show at the Rencontres d’Arles]

tonight, does that appeal to you? Are you happy to see that
photography is celebrated, that we look after it, that we
look at it?
No, it’s a good thing. Yes.

I know that your modesty . . .

But I am not modest!

No?
No. Photography is solitary work. There is emulation. It is interesting
to know what other people do. Even so, writers do not read everything
that is published. A painter does not look at everything. You have to
choose. It’s reality, it’s life that is important. We shouldn’t be sniffing
around each other all the time, looking. . . .

What strikes me is what you said about this solitary work,

which has strongly reverberated today.
It seems contradictory, but it is not. In fact, it is a need for solitude
coupled with a need for not being isolated. It seems essential to me.

Alain Desvergnes 75
That is maybe why photography has so much success
nowadays. Because people need that motionless contact,
which isolates less.
Yes, maybe. Photography is so difficult; it is also so easy. All
you need is a fi nger, two legs, one eye. And unfortunately people
think much too much instead of letting go. I express myself very
poorly. . . .

Does cinema seem close [to photography] to you?

It seems to me that cinema has nothing to do with photography.
Photography is a visual thing that is perceived on a plane like
a drawing, a lithograph, a painting. Cinema is a discourse. You
never see the picture—it’s always the picture that comes next. It is
completely different.

But still you feel rather comfortable with cinema.

Oh, not at all! I have worked with [Jean] Renoir—I was his second
assistant—but what interested me was working on the dialogues. [ . . . ]
In the end, it is a bit of a trap, the ease of photography makes it
extremely difficult. Choice is important and there are two things, two
aspects: letting go, pressing the button, releasing. . . . [If you just keep
shooting] you might think: “I’m sure to get a good one.” No! It is like
shooting a flock of partridges with a machine gun: it is not possible,
you have to make a very precise choice, know what you want, but at
the same time you cannot censor yourself while shooting and wait. . . .
All the same, you do have to wait for emotion. If the emotion isn’t
there, if there is no shock . . . if you do not react with your senses,
then it’s useless.

Troubling. . . .
Yes, it’s a bit troubling. You cannot censor yourself while you shoot
because you never know; it depends on the outside world. So you have
to milk quite a bit in order to get cream. I say things that are obvious

76 1979
to a “reportage” photographer: it means getting inside life. It has
nothing to do with journalism. Maybe the word reportage doesn’t even
fit. I have known the very good years. In those days life, for me, was
in a sense almost more difficult than it is now, but you could afford
the luxury of spending one year in a country. Now, my colleagues go
for three days. I think that Rodin is the one who said that what we
make with time, time respects. It takes time, to live, to have contacts
with people, to become part of a country as much as possible. At the
same time, it is a very indiscreet trade. There is something revolting
about photographing people—it is a kind of rape, certainly it is. So
if there is no sensitivity, it becomes kind of barbaric, you are defiling
something. If people don’t want to be photographed, you have to
respect that. But nowadays it is extremely complicated, you almost
need to bring a lawyer with you. All that weight on the camera, it’s
heavy. . . .

Has this problem ever hampered you, crippled you?

Oh, yes. All the time. In museums, for instance, the attendants stop
me all the time. Well, not all the time, because I am not caught every
time. It is forbidden to photograph in museums, and yet, peoples’
faces in museums are extraordinary. Once, after I was caught,
an attendant discreetly went to get the police. We went to see the
curator, and I apologized. She said: “Yes, now I give you permission.”
The chief attendant, indignant, told the curator: “Madam Curator
should know that here at the museum, there are husbands who are
not with their wives.” I don’t know if it is a sufficient reason not to
let people be photographed, but it is becoming very difficult to take
pictures. Anyway, photography is very ambiguous. It is an ambiguous
thing.

Does its use in this century seem good to you?

What use? Nothing is good, nothing is bad. It depends what you do
with it. [ . . . ] I have had the same camera for years and years. I am a

Alain Desvergnes 77
very bad customer. Nowadays, it is a whole world of commerce. Where
are we going with it?

The image of the world that you see in museums, that

you see on screens like [the projection at Arles’s Théâtre
Antique tonight], does it reflect something that’s objective
enough? Or are we flattering ourselves?
There is both. It depends. There are sharp looks. I have colleagues
whose gaze is very sharp and tender at the same time. This doesn’t
mean they are being harsh, but being human. One shouldn’t be
sentimental when it is necessary to be fi rm; one shouldn’t be harsh
when it’s necessary to be human. Living is difficult. My god, what
a sermon. [ . . . ] I don’t know what can be said about photography.
You should do it and say nothing. You don’t do it, you take it.

You are touching on a very real problem. It is a question of

sensitivity, and sensitivity cannot be learned in school. But
how is it possible to oppose this current of indifference if we
don’t try to talk about . . .
Because they are trying to turn people into good tools for society. Culture
is a pretty minor thing. Don’t you think so?

Yes, it surely is nowadays.

It’s a joke.

But photography is a way to educate yourself.

It’s a way of questioning the world and questioning yourself at the
same time.

This is why it is a fantastic school.

Yes, it entails discipline. For me, freedom is a basic frame of
reference, and inside that frame are all the possible variations.
Everything, everything, everything. But it is within a frame. The

78 1979
important thing is the sense of limit. And visually, it is the sense of
form. Form is important. The structure of things. The space.

You have given a famous expression to photography: “the

decisive moment.”
That’s not me. I had nothing to do with it.

You had nothing to do with it?

Absolutely not!

Who stuck that on you?

[ . . . ] I used it as an epigraph to Images à la sauvette: it’s a phrase
by Cardinal de Retz: “There is nothing in this world that does not
have a decisive moment.” We were looking for a title for the American
publication, and it was Dick Simon, of Simon and Schuster, who
had the idea of using The Decisive Moment as a title for the book. It
seemed to me that the phrase by Cardinal de Retz could be applied to
photography.

Still, you had something to do with it.

But no, I have nothing to do with it. I found it in Cardinal de Retz’s
Mémoires.

Finding it was already something: it meant reinventing it.

Yes, but in the end, it becomes a sort of keyword, a passkey.
It’s like everything. You have to question things, wonder what’s
behind them, what they are about. What is it? Why? It is always
repeated like that. There is a kind of intellectual comfort gained by
repeating it.

It is a somewhat sibylline phrase, anyways.

So much the better. A bit of ambiguity does not bother me. I am from
Normandy, so I do not dislike it. “Maybe yes, maybe no.”

Alain Desvergnes 79
It’s a bit difficult to tell someone: “What do you feel like
saying to people who are starting in the same line as yours?”
My line is the same as that of [André] Kertész, that of [Martin]
Munkacsi, that of Umbo [Otto Umbehr]. It is all these people. It’s Man
Ray. There are lots of people.

You’ve spoken to me about a picture you saw in the early

1930s of three little black kids. . . .
Oh, yes, it’s fantastic, fantastic, fantastic. It is a picture by Munkacsi.
It lit up something within me. I thought, look, how is it possible to do
that with a camera? It is really the photograph, the only photograph,
but it does not take away my admiration for other photographers. You
want, you want, you tell yourself: “Right, it is up to me to search
in my own way and see what I can do with that.” And I bought a
camera, I got a camera in . . . I am not sure, in 1931, I believe. And
a week later I was shooting pictures. I read the manual and that’s
it. There is a small manual that is sold with cameras. Likewise, to
develop the photos, I bought powder at the marchand de couleurs. 32
I read the manual and I mixed up the powders. I don’t know anything
about photography. It does not bother me—I have no desire to know.
I’m not interested. What interests me is reality. The rest doesn’t interest
me at all. If other people are interested, it’s their most basic right. I can
understand that. But all of us don’t eat the same dishes—we don’t have
to. You have to respect people’s differences; it’s essential. Otherwise,
we’ll all become technocrats.

Now you know more about yourself.

I ask questions. I don’t know about that. The only real answer is
death. It’s not a sad thing: it’s true. What’s important is that to make
the most of things, you have to use very limited means. For that reason
I have one camera and one lens: you need an economy of means in
order to get the maximum. It’s intensity that counts. When I see the
amount of gear that some photographers have and then see their

80 1979
results, there is a bit of a discrepancy. I know photographs that Cecil
Beaton shot with a Brownie Box camera, it’s perfect; or Brassaï’s
camera—it’s modest. Keeping that economy of means is important.
Of course, it does not suit camera salesmen. They would like you to
consume all the time. I own an old Leica that’s indestructible. I have
another one that is faster. But the first one is quite enough.

Do you prefer the old one, the fi rst one?

Oh, yes, in fact, yes. It belongs to the same family as the one I had
when I started out. It is the Leica Model G. It’s exactly like the very first
ones, except that it has a parallax correction, but otherwise it’s exactly
the same concept. After that there was the M3, which is wonderful.
That’s the one I use when I really work. The other one is my notebook,
my sketchbook. For me, the camera is a sketchbook, nothing more. And
a sketch is not a drawing; it is immediate. But it contains the whole
essence of something caught from life. To seize life, tackle it head-on.

It seems to me that you’ll never stop asking questions with

this sketching machine.
Because life happens right here, as long as you have eyes and they
work. [ . . . ] Photography, the way I like it, is black-and-white,
because it transposes things. It has an abstract quality and an
extremely strong emotional power. Of course there is color, but that’s
not my world at all. [ . . . ] It always flatters a bit, but it does not
possess the abstract strength of black-and-white. And I think that
the problems with color that occur if you have a painter’s eye can
never be dealt with in photography. [ . . . ] I would say that color
in its transparency—in other words, when it’s projected—is like
a stained-glass window, and it can be very interesting and very
pleasing. It can be very pleasing when you project it because light
goes through it as it does with stained glass, but after that, when
you get to the inks, to the printing, you have no control. And one
color in itself is never beautiful. It functions through relationships;

Alain Desvergnes 81
nothing exists by itself. A beautiful red exists in relation to a brown
or a white. These are relationships. Warm colors, cold colors. There
are laws inherent to color, to physics. It is not my field, but these
are essential things. You have to read the books written by painters.
André Lhote writes about it at length in his Traité du paysage et
de la figure (Treatise on landscape and figure painting).33 Anyway,
the color problems of a painter are not any different from those a
photographer encounters. But in cinema or studio photography, it is
completely different from our concept of photography—that is, of
things shot from life—because the directors can compose their colors
in the studio, as the milliner composes a hat. It is their problem.
But in photography shot from life, from reality, that’s very difficult
because the eye chooses what attracts it. For instance, we could see
a pleasing relationship between colors, but as we work at 1/125th of
a second, the eye has ignored things that the camera records. And
now the print displays a green that clashes awfully with this red.
And everything is in there, so you can’t do anything about it. And
it is about commerce again! There are magazines that specialize in
color because they think that it will sell. If they found a gimmick to
make paper smell as well they would do it. They must sell, sell at
all cost. These are money problems, and a neurosis that comes from
money problems; it is a neurotic world. . . . What were we saying
about color? It went out of my head.

A moment ago you were talking about cinema. Does video

seem to you closer or further from photography than
cinema?
I don’t know. For me, photography is something you look at, you take
your time, it exists on a plane.

Video is faster; it is more vernacular.

No, no. I think that video is a very important tool of communication
between people. Videotape recorders seem to me an extremely

82 1979
important weapon to be used in therapies, in very precise things.
But the aesthetic side, the visual beauty, that is a bit lacking, the
resolution is not very. . . . But the document has incredible strength
and a great range of action.

If you were offered to shoot a video, would you be

interested?
I prefer drawing, which is much more rudimentary and deeper. Video
is exciting, but all my attention is taken up by something else. You
can’t do it all; you have to choose. What is dealt with in video is not
the visual question; it’s the question of relationships with people, in a
very important way. You see what I mean? Visually, it doesn’t . . . it’s
like television, a tiny picture like that. . . .

The development of instant cameras like the Polaroid that

use a sonar for focusing . . . these are tools that you might
like since, after all, they are very fast, very small. . . .
No, I don’t know. No. I love my old Leica, I am completely at ease
with it and anything else hampers me. These machines make me
uncomfortable; I don’t know how to work with them, too complicated,
too many thingies. I have the automatic reflex within me. If you pinch
me, I jump. I don’t need a camera that. . . .

. . . that does it for you.

No. It is never exactly right. It feels like a gadget to me, I am not
interested. But I am very curious when a new lens or a new film comes
out. I have enormous respect for that. But in this area of the gadget
that does things for you, no. . . .

Did you ever feel like coloring your black-and-white pictures?

Yes. I never did it though because I prefer painting. [ . . . ] But
I can understand that someone would color, choose their color . . .
I understand it very well. [ . . . ]

Alain Desvergnes 83
Who is your favorite poet? In the last hour you have talked
a lot about poetry.
But poetry is not only . . . it is . . .

Right, of course, we could also talk about photographic

poetry. But who is the “verbal” poet that you love most?
Oh, like three-quarters of people, I’d say Rimbaud . . . but not to
exclude a vast number of other poets.

But he is the one you would name fi rst?

For me, Rimbaud, yes. Ever since my childhood.

And which writer?

Just like that? [Laughs]

Dostoyevsky? If you said William Faulkner, I’d be thrilled.

No, I am talking about [those who write] in my own language . . . I
don’t know . . . all that is . . .

Just one last word before you are free of my presence and
my questions. This year’s Rencontres . . . what does it say
to you, that notion of “encounters,” what you know about it,
what you have seen of it, in Arles?
I’m not very well informed.

Your exhibition at the Musée Réattu . . .

I am curious to see the photographs, but as for me, I like small groups.

We are a small group.

Oh, yes?

We are a bit in step with you.

I hope so. I like small organizations, groups of friends.

84 1979
You should go and see our place, our convent, it is really
very small.
Sure, sure, I am going to go. I like small organizations, small things.

Does it seem positive to you? Does it seem interesting that

this photography that has excited you for years . . .
. . . that excites me still!

. . . that it would be continued, taken up by a group of

people who want to develop it, want it to be talked about, to
be exhibited . . .
There has been much too much talk. Between us, too. [Laughs] There
should not be too much talk, too many commentaries.

I thank you.
I am the one who should thank you.

Desvergnes’s conversation with Cartier-Bresson was recorded and first broadcast on

the occasion of a slide show of Cartier-Bresson’s photographs during an evening at the
Théâtre Antique during the Rencontres d’Arles in July 1979. Transcript: Anaïs Feyeux.
Excerpts of the interview were published as: Alain Desvergnes, “HCB à la question,”
Photo, no. 144 (September 1, 1979): 86, 87, 98.

Alain Desvergnes 85
The Hard Pleasure
of Photography

Interview with
Gilles A. Tiberghien (1986)
Author’s note: This interview was conducted in spring 1986, without a
tape recorder, and I annotated it for its first publication. Henri Cartier-
Bresson and Martine Franck have reread it; I thank them for allowing
publication. This part of the interview, which covers the period from
Henri Cartier-Bresson’s beginnings until the formation of Magnum, is
the most coherent remaining section of a larger project that, in the end,
I abandoned.—G.A.T.

Gilles A. Tiberghien: What kind of cultural milieu did you

grow up in?
Henri Cartier-Bresson: The cultured side of my family was the Blazy
side, that of my maternal grandmother. My mother often spoke about
literature, but my father was irritated by all the psychology that can
be found in novels. However, at the end of his life, he found a passion
for Proust. It was my uncle Guillaume, my mother’s younger brother,
an ambassador, who made me read Proust when I was a teenager.
The book was dedicated: “From an old bore who apologizes for not
understanding constructivism.”

You interrupted your studies early on and started painting.

Why and how?
I stopped because of my disgust for all these values of work,
family. . . . I studied with André Lhote in 1927 to 1928. He was
an excellent teacher, but not very inspired, and eventually he
became dogmatic and systematic. Jacques-Émile Blanche called
him “Frise-Poulet.”34 He would say: “Why don’t you go over to
Frise-Poulet’s?” There were many foreigners in André Lhote’s
class, many Swedish and American girls. This is where I met Jean
Rouvier, 35 Léna Mumm. 36 But there weren’t any good painters.
Lhote did not critique [my work]. He would say: “Surrealist point
of view. Pretty colors. Carry on.” It wasn’t very encouraging. Maybe
I would have remained a painter all the same if I had worked with
him during the summer sessions.

88 1986
And why didn’t you?
Who knows! I sold only one painting at the time. I actually bought
it back recently from someone else, who had acquired it in the
meantime.
Once, after a session with Lhote, I was having a drink with an
American girl who told me that one of her friends was going to come
and join us. I wasn’t really interested—I simply wanted to chat with
her. All of a sudden a man smoking a black cigarette with a silver
filter comes and sits at our table. We start chatting, time passes, and
we realize that the girl is gone. That’s how I met Harry Crosby. We
remained very good friends. He brought me to Ermenonville, where he
had rented a mill.37 That is where I met Max Ernst and also my first
girlfriend. She was thirty years old and I was twenty, which made for a
very good rapport!
During those years I saw a lot of [André Pieyre de] Mandiargues,
Pierre Josse, and my cousin Louis Le Breton. Mandiargues lived close
to our country house. Pierre, I met him through Louis Le Breton. He
was already sculpting, but as his father died very young, he had to
start working right away to support the family.

Did André Pieyre de Mandiargues introduce you to the

Surrealists?
No. According to him, it was the other way round. Anyway, I met
[René] Crevel at Jacques-Émile Blanche’s home, where I was painting
with Louis Le Breton.

Jacques-Émile Blanche was a real socialite. . . .

Yes, but in the sense that he liked society. He was a very refi ned
man, very curious about people. At his place I also met [Pierre]
Drieu La Rochelle, whom I did not like very much, and other
Surrealists. I was very fond of Crevel; he was a man who had a
hard time being a homosexual. His death upset me a lot. A
newspaper asked me my impressions of Crevel. I read aloud to

Gilles A. Tiberghien 89
them an excerpt of [his 1932 novel] Le clavecin de Diderot [Diderot’s
harpsichord], full of invectives against the bourgeoisie. What a
text! But the paper did not even quote it.

In 1931 you left for the Ivory Coast. Why?

It was for personal reasons. I caught blackwater-fever sickness there
and almost died from it. The black man I was hunting with treated
me. He had a good knowledge of medicinal herbs. He had poisoned
an “arrogant white lady.” We were hunting together in the marshes
with a headlamp. We had to progress cautiously. We looked right and
left and then, all of a sudden, we would see an animal’s eyes shining.
I learned to recognize the eyes from their shapes and colors. When
we had killed a crocodile we would cut its head off. When we came
back at the end of the hunt, it had crawled another ten meters without
a head. Then we had to clean out the bile, which was poisonous, and
bury it. At first I lived on the coast and I would take a dugout canoe
past the sandbar to bring the messages to the ships—we capsized
once or twice.
In the beginning I stayed with a white man, a lumberjack.
But one day he went mad: he was asking the blacks to shoot him
and they were asking me what to do. Finally I sent a runner to
get another white man who lived the closest to us, about thirty
miles away. After that I stayed with that other man. He was an
ex-officer who lived in a “factory” with a store and crops. He lived
with a Tukulor “moussa” [mistress]—he could not live with a native
because then she would have cheated on him. Before the company
hired him, the director told him: “You will be going for a long time
and far away. We won’t see you much. I have to know if you can
be trusted, so I will ask you a few questions.” He asked the man
if, when he farted in bed, he shook the sheets and lifted his leg to
breathe the smell, and if, when he scratched his toes, he sniffed his
fingers after. These were the psychological tests of the time. The guy
answered that he did not see how that was the director’s business,

90 1986
and he was hired. The other candidates before him had been
terribly embarrassed and had not known what to answer! After that
I left for Tabou, 38 on the Ivory Coast. The atmosphere was exactly
as described in [Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s 1932 novel] Voyage au
bout de la nuit [Journey to the End of the Night]. There were five
storekeepers and five guys from the [French] administration. They
hated each other but drank together. They all had “moussas” that they
traded among themselves. It was completely disgusting. The French
people were despicable. In the fields I saw the “moussas’ ” husbands,
who were forced to work in leg irons. I had brought with me to Africa
[James Joyce’s] Ulysses, Rimbaud, Lautréamont, and Cendrars’s contes
africains [African Folk Tales, 1921]. I think that I still have that copy
of Lautréamont.

Was that the fi rst time that you read Ulysses?

No. The fi rst time I read it, I was in the military. In those days,
when you arrived at the barracks, you did [a spelling test]—what we
call a dictation. Then you fi lled out a form. For “Education level,”
I wrote “None.” To the question “Do you want to be an officer?” I
answered “No.” There was also a section where they asked for our
comments. At some point I had wanted to be a pilot but I got over
that quickly. So I wrote: “Ne vous balancer pas si fort/Le ciel est
a tout le monde” [“Don’t swing around so wildly/the sky belongs to
everyone”]. 39 After that the sub-lieutenants burst out laughing when
they saw me, and the officers looked at me disgustedly. During the
inspection of the new recruits, the captain made me rise from the
ranks and, pointing to the paper, asked me:
—What’s this you wrote?
—Cocteau.
—Cocteau what?
—It is a 1920 poem by Cocteau.
They sent me to a disciplinary company, and I had a really hard
time.

Gilles A. Tiberghien 91
You had your fi rst exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery [in
New York] in 1932 [sic: 1933].40 How did that go?
The exhibition featured the first photographs that I had done here [in
France]. Julien Levy was an American Surrealist who, at the time,
had settled in Bonnieux [in the South of France]. I met him at the
Crosbys’, who lived at rue de Lille [in Paris] then, where [Max] Ernst
lived later. And it is actually from there that [Caresse], Harry’s wife,
called me when he committed suicide.

Then you did a story in Spain and left for Mexico for a year.
[The magazine] Vu had asked me for a story. I left with a girlfriend
and for a while we lived in Madrid with a young Sephardic woman who
lived with a black American poet. The photograph that was published
in [Breton’s poetry collection] L’amour fou [Mad Love; 1937] was taken
then, and not during the Spanish Civil War, as Breton claimed. I left
for Mexico with an ethnographic expedition. I don’t remember exactly
how it happened, but I remember the Paris apartment on rue de
Courcelles where I went to see the expedition leader, an Argentine by
the name of Julio Brandan. The expedition, linked to the construction
of the Pan-American Highway, was to be financed by the Mexican
government. We sailed to Veracruz. Once we arrived there, we were
told that there was no more money. I was supposed to join my uncle
Guillaume in Rio but then he died. So I decided to go to Mexico and
live there any way I could. This is when I met Lupe [Guadalupe]
Marin, Diego Rivera’s first wife [sic: second wife].41 In Mexico we
had rented an apartment next to hers that I shared with Langston
Hughes and Nacho [Ignacio] Aguirre.42 At that time I worked for the
Excélsior.43 In 1935, I exhibited at the Palacio de Bellas Artes with
[Manuel] Álvarez Bravo. We got on very well, but I have to say that,
apart from him, most of my friends were painters. In Mexico City, I
lived in a vivienda, a sort of long, open-air corridor. On one side it
overlooked the Merced market, and on the other the red-light district:
at night we heard the whores’ sighs, but by day it was the sound of

92 1986
the nails being driven into the coffins. It was the Calle Ecuador. It
does not exist anymore.44 When I went back [to Mexico] in 1963, I
worked for Alemán [Valdés], the former president, who ran a tour-
information office. I had a driver, who did not want to come with
me. I was hiding my camera under my jacket but I could not take
any pictures. A friend said that he was going to fi x it for me. I went
back with two bodyguards. Of course, it was useless to try and take a
picture! In short, these were rather dangerous spots. Later on, I went
to Juchitán [de Zaragoza], where I stayed for a year, selling pictures
for a living.

Then, without going back to Europe, you went to the United

States and you stopped photographing. . . .
Yes, I lived in New York, where I worked with people studying film
with Paul Strand.

Did you see him often?

In fact, almost never. He stopped by from time to time to see what we
were up to. At the time I lived with Charles Henri Ford,45 then with
Nicolas Nabokov,46 then in Harlem with a black girlfriend. It was also
around that time that I met Helen Levitt.47
But to go back to cinema: what interested me were the rhythm
and the story. As for the photography, you don’t see it. You simply
have to make sure that the visual side is correct. Another thing is
the editing—and here we are back to rhythm, which is what’s really
exciting about cinema!

How did you get to know [Jean] Renoir?

When I came back from the United States, I went to see him and
brought my photographs. He hired me for La vie est à nous [Life
Belongs to Us; 1936]. Then it was Partie de campagne [A Day in
the Country; 1936], and La règle du jeu [The Rules of the Game;
1939].

Gilles A. Tiberghien 93
You are also an extra in his fi lms.
Yes. Renoir always wanted his assistants to know what happens on
the other side of the camera. Among his assistants, I was especially
friendly with [Jacques] Becker. I also liked [André] Zwoboda, but it
wasn’t the same. Becker was very subtle, but the stories he told were
always long and tangled. I thought that he would never succeed in
making a film. But when I saw Casque d’or [1952] . . . ! Renoir was a
wonderful man, but not an easy one. He became discouraged easily.
You had to know when to suggest a drink or a Ping-Pong game. He
was very demanding of the actors, but also very polite—it was always
necessary to make an actor believe that his great role was the next
one. Around Renoir a small community formed, in which people knew
each other well. I would not have liked to work with people other
than him, probably because I did not like the world of cinema, and
also because I knew that I would not make other fiction films, while
documentaries, yes, I thought that I would make them.

Did you paint or draw during that time?

No, I couldn’t do it all. I went back to it after I escaped, between 1943
and 1946.

You were taken prisoner at the beginning of the war?

In June 1940, along with Alain Douarinou, who was a cameraman
when we shot La vie est à nous. Just before that, in the Vosges region,
they had given us back our military booklets. Mine said: “Wimpy,
very wimpy: incapable of being promoted.” With Douarinou, we made
a first escape attempt, but we were recaptured, and he—the poor
soul—he was sent to Poland. We were in a stalag in the Black Forest,
and that’s where I met [Raymond] Guérin. He was always incredibly
well turned-out, while we were filthy. We were working in the kitchen,
on peeling duty. He was an officer. He spoke about Plotinus and
literature and was finishing his book Les poulpes [The Octopus; 1953].
When the war ended, he said that it was too soon because he had not

94 1986
had enough time to finish his novel. We got on very well.48 Later on I
escaped again with Claude Lefranc. We were wondering what we were
going to do after the war. He wanted to become a fashion designer. I
told him that I would be a painter. Madame Lefranc knew a man from
Lorraine who got us from Germany to France. Then I went into hiding
at a farm in Loches, and from there I came to Paris to work for the
MNGPD [Mouvement National des Prisonniers de guerre et déportés/
National movement of war prisoners and deportees], which was a
clandestine movement to help escapees.

You made a fi lm about the Spanish Civil War.

It was a film assigned by a medical association to raise money for
Republican hospitals.49 There were three of us [who worked on it:]
Jacques Lemare, Herbert Kline, and myself. Jacques and I had a
reportage-style concept of the thing, and the American guy who shot
the film with us had a rather Hollywoodian vision. In the end our film
had no real cohesion.

Before the war, you had joined the Communist Party.

How did you get that idea?
It was at the suggestion of Georges Sadoul.50

What were your motivations?

I joined the party out of guilt. Supposedly you had to be close to the
people, and I was ashamed of being a bourgeois. You had to adhere
to the party religiously; this required certainties, and I realized that,
after all, it was not my problem. I went to the cell meetings [meekly,]
like a little boy. They were held on rue de la Sourdière [in Paris],
across from [Louis] Aragon’s apartment. I quit on tiptoe. What I liked
about Georges [Sadoul] was his “lumberjack” side. And for us he was
crowned with the glory of Surrealism! He was a very subtle man, very
cultured and very brave—he showed that during the war. But he was
a believer. He believed in Stalin. At the end of his life he told me:

Gilles A. Tiberghien 95
“Henri, I don’t have any political sense.” And he was the one who had
led us all!

Right after the war, in 1947, you participated in the

creation of Magnum. How did you all come to that decision?
Either you followed a magazine’s commands, or you created your
own organization. For us, it had become a necessity. Chim [David
Seymour] introduced me to [Robert] Capa and to Maria Eisner, a
young Jewish woman who had fled Germany and was running a small
agency: Alliance Photo. We gave her our prints. But you had to be
fast, and with our limited means it was not always possible. When we
covered the King of England’s coronation,51 we developed the pictures
at the studio but we couldn’t sell anything! After the war you had to
use a Rolleiflex. We were jackasses with our Leicas!

What had changed?

The world! You had to adapt. With Chim we used to say: “We
won’t shoot aesthetic pictures anymore.” I kept the same taste for
painting, for form, but I had to adapt it. Capa told me: “Go witness
the decolonization.” And that’s what I did. Capa knew how to plan;
Chim was a philosopher; and I had an aesthetic vision. I had the eye
of a painter and a passion for painting. But, us three, what we had in
common was that we were adventurous—not adventurers: the term
adventurous preserves an ethics. In short, before the war, I tinkered.
I became a reporter only afterward.

Did you have to move faster then?

No, I still took all my time. I could remain in a country for long
stretches. That period was still like the end of the nineteenth
century. The war had changed a lot of things, and at the same time
the year was 1950. In any case, you could still work in interesting
conditions. I did a lot of stories for Holiday. I was told: “Shoot lively
pictures, go sniff around!” And you often had to deliver a text along

96 1986
with the photographs. There was also very exciting work when the
big companies published their annual report. You could go all over
the place and take pictures. I did reports for National City Bank, for
Citroën. . . . Later on, that was no longer possible. You were always
threatened with lawsuits.
They call it “work,” but one sure thing is that photography is
not work. You don’t work: you take a dur plaisir—a “hard pleasure”—
as a doctor friend used to tell me. It is an exercise but not just any
exercise. When you have a visual sense, well, it creates responsibilities!
Photography can’t be calculated, there’s nothing intellectual
about it. You do not have any explicit intention, you have an intuition,
and afterward you decide if it holds or doesn’t. It is the same as in all
the other forms of art.

Gilles A. Tiberghien’s interview was conducted in spring 1986, and was first published
as “Le dur plaisir de photographier: Entretien avec Henri Cartier-Bresson,” Les Cahiers
du Musée National d’Art Moderne, no. 92, Summer 2005: 55–63.

Gilles A. Tiberghien 97
An Endless Play

Interview with
Gilles Mora (1986)
Gilles Mora: Since the start of your painting and
photographic practice, you have consistently claimed an
attachment to the Surrealist approach. Could you clarify
how this aesthetics, based on chance and intuition, but
also the merging of art and life, has defi ned you, and still
does?
Henri Cartier-Bresson: Since I was very young, around 1926 to 1927,
I’ve been influenced not by Surrealist painting, but by [André]
Breton’s concepts. I went to the meetings at the Café de la Place
Blanche [in Paris] on a regular basis, even though I was not part
of the group. I liked Breton’s concept of Surrealism a lot, the part
played by spontaneity and intuition, and most of all, the attitude of
rebellion.

For the Surrealists, everything that went against the

established order, in art, a general rebellion . . .
Right. In art, but also in life.

Didn’t all this lead to ambiguities of judgment concerning

your artistic practice, and the character you represent?
Ambiguities?

You were often blamed for not taking the profession of

photographer or photography seriously. Isn’t there a link
with that attitude?
That’s not really my concern. I have a few friends whom I trust
completely, and their criticisms do a great deal of good to me. What
people think, that’s their problem. . . .

Let’s go back to the concept of “work.” Does it exist in

photography?
No and no. I have a friend—this goes back to the 1960s—he was a
doctor and a novelist. We were talking about our activities. After I had

100 1986
described to him how I spent my time with my camera, he told me:
“You, you don’t work, you take a hard pleasure.” It is wonderful that
he told me that, since I am a great admirer of [Paul] Lafargue’s essay
“Le droit à la paresse” [“The Right to Be Lazy”; 1880]. It is that
concept, you understand? I learned a lot from André Lhote in terms
of painting and visual art in general. But I left him because I couldn’t
stand his theoretician side, and I had a great taste for adventure; that’s
why I chose to leave for Africa in 1932 [sic: 1930].52

So you were claiming a refusal of theorizing, of rigid

attitudes. It is the same Surrealist choice, and it doesn’t
seem like you abandoned it.
Yes, and the necessity of questioning yourself. That’s it, the “hard
pleasure” I was just mentioning. For me, the great passion is the
photographic shooting, which is an accelerated drawing, made from
intuition and the recognition of a formal visual order: the result, for
me, of attending museums and galleries, of reading, and a hunger for
the world.
Taking photographs, yes; but looking at them, on the other hand,
was never essential for me. The fundamental picture for me was by
[Martin] Munkacsi, of black kids jumping into the wave. What formal
strength, what feeling for life, that black, that white, that foam. I was
overwhelmed. This is the photograph that did it for me . . . the others,
[André] Kertész, Umbo [Otto Umbehr], and so on . . . created an
emulation.

Many people seem to discern two periods in your photographic

activity: the early years (from 1931 to 1945), and the
period initiated by the founding of Magnum [1947], ending
when you seem to deem drawing more important, that is,
around 1971. Do you feel that the early years granted you
more creative freedom? Did the amateurism, which you
accepted, embody a freedom and a privileged complicity

Gilles Mora 101

with reality? As if, in photography, one depended so much
on the outside world that it created states of grace. (I’m
thinking about your stay in Mexico in 1934, in Spain and
Italy in 1933, or about your early images.)
What you are saying seems quite right to me. The world was different
then, and anyway, we are products of our times. Before the war, I
was lucky enough to be able to move around slowly when I traveled.
During that period, I discovered the Leica; I found that it was the
perfect tool for accelerated drawing and for practicing how to look
at life. I went nosing around—there is no other word for it—I went
sniffing with my camera. Moreover, I was nurtured by a great deal of
literary and visual material. So it was a privileged alliance. I never
liked travels. I don’t know how to travel. Yet I travel, I move around
a bit, because in photography the element of surprise is important. I
move around because I have to, so I can go snooping. And what you
say about my early photographs is completely accurate. I was totally
available, I had very little money, I lived in rather squalid hotels. But
I had a ticket, it was high luxury: third class, valid for three months,
three hundred pesetas. In Spain, that was how I traveled.
When you use a camera, your visual concentration is intense, as
it is when you draw. But if you overshoot, your contact sheet is likely
to become a jumble of peelings. You need a lot of sand to discover
a nugget. Shooting is a play between pickpocketing and tightrope
walking; an endless play, fraught with huge tension.
Going back to the postwar period: that is when I still felt close to
André Breton and what he wrote somewhere: “Life first!” Later on,
I became a photo-reporter, though still an amateur: the professional
status only meant that I had to deliver the agreed-upon story on
deadline.

Was that period an initiation trip?

Maybe so. I didn’t know what was to become of me the next day. That’s
still the case now, as it is each time you question yourself.

102 1986
At that time, what were your favorite subjects?
You will have to ask my nostrils. I was following my sense of smell.

But some things attracted you more than others?

No! It was life, and that’s all! And above all, that mysterious
component of photography: composition, geometry. If I move by a
millimeter, how come it will be a better composition? That’s why I told
myself: “I cannot crop.” No “maybe.”

At that time your visual system was already set up?

It took me three days! As soon as I had read the Leica handbook.

So you were in a state of complete availability, and with a

constant visual hunger. . . .
That world, between the wars, it was the nineteenth century still,
which ended around 1955 with the beginnings of the consumer
society. It’s true that I was in a state of total availability, and I really
took a hard pleasure, but it was pleasure! Yes, “available”—not a
dilettante. I cared immensely about the world. The Surrealists could
seem like dilettantes, but they were not. They were in revolt.
I stopped photographing in 1935, when I was in New York. To
me, photography has always been only one of several means of visual
expression. I’ll say it again: photography is not essential to me. So,
along with some other people, I started learning cinema from Paul
Strand. I was switching tools. Since I have no literary imagination, I
knew that I would not direct fiction movies but would probably shoot
documentaries. For me, the visual aspect of photography in film is
only one element, and I believe that great movies are made by people
who are close to novelists. In a film, you don’t see the photograph. It is
always the next image, as in a stream.

So, during the years 1935 to 1939, you studied cinema

with Paul Strand. You also were an assistant to Jean Renoir

Gilles Mora 103

in major fi lms (La règle du jeu [The Rules of the
Game; 1939], etc.). Later on, you went on to shoot
four documentary fi lms.53 Why the fascination with
that constant back-and forth between photography and
another visual tool?
At that time, I was at a turning point. I didn’t know what I was
going to do. The few documentaries that I shot interested me. A
documentary fi lm is a photographic reportage, shot with a moving
camera. Editing allows continuity; you have to accept that. But
in photography, the loss of continuity has never been a problem
for me. In photo-reportage, I am mostly looking for the unique
photograph, that is: condensation. I learned that it was possible to
switch tools, to go from the camera to the movie camera. Painting,
drawing, and photography create a meditative time for the viewer.
But fi lm editing imposes its own reading rhythm, as dance does.

Why did you destroy many images from the period between
the wars?
When [World War II] came (we had sensed it was coming for a long
while), I took my negatives back and I destroyed almost everything,
except what remains in Images à la sauvette/The Decisive Moment
[1952]. In the same way, I got rid of all my paintings when I left
André Lhote. As for the reasons of this gesture . . . I did it as you
cut your nails: snip, snap! You go for a haircut because it’s enough.
I kept the photographs that I found interesting. What allowed me to
stop, to draw a line, was when we did the book Henri Cartier-Bresson:
Photographe with Robert Delpire in 1979.54 It was Tériade who
advised me to go back to drawing, and also with Jean Renoir’s
approval. It has led me to sum it all up.
Photography has been very important to me, and all that. But it is
impossible to concentrate on two things at once that are so close and
so far from each other. What I destroyed was uninteresting.

104 1986
In 1947 you established Magnum Photos, with [Robert]
Capa and [David] Seymour.55 Was there an urgency that was
specific to those times, were you more concerned by the job
of photo-reporter that was becoming yours? Did it change
your way of seeing and photographing the world? Was there
sometimes an incompatibility between your assignment work
and your own aesthetic demands, or were you able to take
on both?
Yes, but in reportage there is a terrible danger: overshooting. The first
photo-reporters I had contact with were Seymour [“Chim”] and Robert
Capa. We were already friends before the war. I thought of reportage
because we occasionally had assignments—such as the coronation
of the Queen of England [Elizabeth II]—that did not sell because
we were not organized for distribution. So I opened my mind to
photo-reportage, which I had not done at all during my early years.
When we founded Magnum, at the time of my famous
“posthumous” exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art,
organized by Beaumont Newhall,56 Capa told me: “Beware of labels!
They are reassuring. But they’ll stick one to you that you won’t
recover from! ‘Little Surrealist photographer.’ You will be lost; you
will become precious and fussy.” He was right. He added: “Better
to choose the label ‘photojournalist,’ and keep the rest in your little
heart.” So I followed his advice. But—and this is my weak spot—as
the magazines were paying, I always felt that I had to give them quantity.
I never had the nerve to tell them: “Here you go, I shot four pictures,
nothing more!” During the three years when I lived in the Far East,
I did not see my pictures often, except on occasion, when they were
published in magazines. At the time, I wasn’t interested. I was always
absorbed by life. Once the picture was in the little box, a quick look
and a red grease-pencil mark on the contact sheet, then on to the next!
If you don’t want to overshoot, you should press the button only when
the subject grabs you: that is, the small sensation, and that’s it. . . .

Gilles Mora 105

Looking at the images that you shot for Magnum in that
period, one is fascinated by the number of experiences you
went through: people, attitudes, and circumstances of the
photos. . . .
I think that there was a necessity specific to those years, after the
war—[that is, after] 1939 to 1945—which Magnum perceived well.
We were setting up a cooperative in which we could choose our own
subjects and turn down stories that didn’t interest us. In that sense,
we were not mercenaries. Moreover, we lived in a world without
television, and at the same time, documentary images were in great
demand from the public. No “tours” or charter flights existed, and
we could respond to that curiosity. We were confronted with financial
problems, since none of us was an administrator. So many times we
were on the verge of bankruptcy!
The thing I managed to do best was the “photographic essay” on
a city or a region, when nothing much happens. Then I feel easy in my
mind, I move about quietly, unnoticed, and sniff around, then hop!
I sting.

One can sense this in the early years of your life in

photography. You are at ease when things happen without a
predetermined theme . . .
Yes. When there was too much of an imposed theme, I felt limited.
So they did not often assign me those. For me, in the end, the gist of
it was: “Let it be in the box!” After that, it was finished. I quickly
penciled in my contacts. But there were always friends who helped me
out after. Tériade, Delpire, and others . . .

That shared responsibility for the work seems unique to

photography. . . .
Contrary to what some people say, I never chose the titles for my
books. And I also never did the layouts. I was consulted and that’s
it. For the book conceived by Delpire, HCB: photographe, I had the

106 1986
final word for the image choice, and Delpire had the final word for the
layout. It was the same for the layout of Photoportraits, published by
Gallimard: Jeanine Fricker did it.57 The same went for my exhibitions.
Sometimes I’d make a change at the last minute, but that was it.

You often defi ne yourself as a “libertarian.” How did that

attitude translate itself into photography, into your personal
commitments, but also into how you conceive of your
practice?
I don’t minimize photography, but for me it has only meant shooting.
On the other hand, I make a distinction between “photography” and
“photographing.” I have loved, and love, photographing! My libertarian
side has been constant but diffused, subterranean. We all are
conditioned by our times, and our enthusiasms can vary. The idolization
of technology, the acceleration in speed seem to me like a headlong
rush that creates more and more disparities.

Does your libertarian side make you doubt the hierarchy of

aesthetics?
Absolutely; it is the meaning of the short text that I insisted that
you use as an epigraph for this issue. 58 These hierarchies do not
exist. Every human being is a potential artist, that is, a sensitive
human being. In photography, there is a community, a very important
one, among photo-reporters. It is not about “me, myself, and I.”
Furthermore, there exists a series of gestures leading to the lab.
I am very grateful to my colleagues who print my photographs in the
darkroom. Their skill has allowed me not to do it myself anymore.
That way, I can better concentrate on shooting: I was never without
my camera; it was always tied to my wrist. My gaze constantly
scanned life. This is what made me feel close to Proust when, toward
the end of À la recherche du temps perdu/In Search of Lost Time . . .
he writes: “Real life, life at last laid bare and illuminated . . . is
literature.”59 For me, that was photography.

Gilles Mora 107

In 1952 you wrote the foreword to Images à la sauvette/The
Decisive Moment; in retrospect we realize the importance
of this text for the understanding of your photographic act,
and the act of photographing in general. Could you outline
the circumstances in which you wrote it? The concept of the
“decisive moment” has become essential for the aesthetics of
a whole generation [of photographers]. Others, such as
Robert Frank, have defi ned themselves against what this
notion implies about the organization of visual space and
of the world, and have characterized your work with the
limited term of “classic space.” More than thirty years after
the publication of this historic text, do you still endorse
its whole content, including your radical pronouncements
on color? Did you evolve within the vision you have of
photography, both in its practice and in its aesthetic range?
Tériade published the book in conjunction with Dick Simon of Simon
and Schuster.60 They twisted my arm so that I would write that text.
Simon asked me: “How do you make your images?” I was puzzled . . .
I said: “I don’t know; it’s not important.” Tériade, a nice, quiet Greek
man, took me aside: “Why have you been doing this for twenty years?
Come on, put it down on paper.” I wrote it up quickly in five or six
days. Everything had been in my head since the beginning. And I
haven’t changed my point of view! The only thing that interests me in
photography, I wrote it down in The Decisive Moment. Maybe I have
varied a bit in my point of view on color, but the text that you are
republishing here will have my additional comment on the problem.61
It was Dick Simon who found the title for the book, The Decisive
Moment, after I had simply used an excerpted quote by Cardinal de
Retz as an epigraph in the book. As for the term “classic,” which
you say has been stuck on me, I don’t know what it means. I refuse
to use these categories, the classics, and the moderns. In the end, all
moments are equal. But all moments are indecisive within the stream
of reality. However, for me, as for any artist, there is recognition of a

108 1986
life-saving formal order, countering disintegration through banality,
chaos, or oblivion. And that can be found in Robert Frank’s work too,
though our visual solutions diverge, in accordance with our visions of
the world.

Some people had trouble accepting it when you switched to

drawing. Can you clarify the reasons why photography and
drawing are complementary?
Drawing is a meditation, slow or fast. With photography you always
find yourself on the crest of the wave, like a surfer, always fighting
against time. Photography constantly reshuffles the space-time
problem. Endlessly. That is where my natural nervousness becomes
very useful. Of course, when I draw, the liveliness of my line comes
from that nervousness. But with drawing I am essentially in the realm
of meditation, of stopping time. And yet it is the same visual world.
There is no aesthetics specific to photography or drawing. In both
cases, there is a specific technique adapted to it, and that changes
everything. And for drawing, I have to learn to control myself.
Slowly . . . a photograph has an immediate structure, it is there
straight off. When I draw, I get carried away; I want to have the result
right away! But it is not photography, and I am starting to admit that.
I can retouch a drawing; in photography it is off limits. Or it is the
next picture. Which is why there is waste. But for me, nowadays, the
next drawing is the one that counts. . . .

First published as “Henri Cartier-Bresson, Gilles Mora: Conversation,” Les Cahiers de

la Photographie, no. 18 (1986): 117–25.

Gilles Mora 109

Photographing
Is Nothing,
Looking Is Everything!

Interview with
Philippe Boegner (1989)
Henri Cartier-Bresson: Before we start our conversation, I want
to recall the fi rst time we met. I remember it very well . . . it was
in the spring of 1940, at the Army Photographic Department,
set up in [Paris’s] Buttes-Chaumont. You had just become the
director.

Philippe Boegner: Paul Reynaud, the President of the

Council [of Ministers], had had a visit from the United
States ambassador who complained that the French
army was totally absent from American magazines.
In those, you saw only German generals with their
red lapels. Right away, Reynaud had me recalled from
the front.
And you wanted me to be posted to the photo department.

I was flabbergasted when I realized that only eight

photographers were doing propaganda for France at
war . . . from Narvik to Beirut! And to give a sense of how
far the image has come during this century, I will recall the
day when you were the fi rst to enter my office, because you
were fi rst on the list of eighty names that I had passed on
to headquarters. The chief of staff thought I was insane! It
is true that they viewed photographers as would-be shirkers.
It was only after there were many dead and wounded
photographers that they revised that judgment. Right
away, I can think of the Paris Match photojournalists
[Jean-Pierre] Pedrazzini, Jean Roy, Jacques de Potier [all
wounded or killed while shooting]. And at your agency, at
Magnum?
[Robert] Capa blew up on a mine. Chim was torn to pieces by a
machine gun. Along with [George] Rodger and myself, they were the
Magnum founders. In 1932 my father was not proud at all that I was a
photographer. He barely dared tell his friends.

112 1989
How old were you when you started?
You know, I live from day to day. For me, only one thing counts—it
is the instant and the eternity, eternity that, like the horizon, always
moves back. So it is difficult for me to talk about the past, because
it is not myself anymore: everything I have to say is in my photos.
My contact sheets are my memory, my intimate diary. The girls at
Magnum always knew when we had a new girlfriend; they only had to
look at our contacts.

Still, you must remember the time when you had to have a
camera in hand. . . .
Photography has never been a problem for me, [what is important]
is looking, the way of looking, of questioning with your eyes: I don’t
think; I am impulsive, it is looking that’s important, not photography.
Now, since I have started drawing, I’ve merely switched tools, but it is
still looking that’s important. To look the right way, one should learn to
become a deaf-mute.

Which studies had you done?

The usual studies led me nowhere, because I didn’t pass my
baccalaureate; but when I was in eleventh grade, I was lucky that the
study supervisor at the École Fénelon caught me reading Rimbaud.
In that Catholic school, he was a layman. He told me: “I want no
disturbance in the study room, but you can read in my office.” So, for
a year, I read everything, from D’Annunzio to Proust.
Later, when I was taken as a prisoner of war in 1940, they gave
us our military booklets, and they had written in mine: “Wimpy, very
wimpy: incapable of being promoted.” That’s how I learned in 1940
what they thought of me.

You were just saying that what was important was how you
look at others. . . .
It bounces back onto you. Photographing is an attitude in life.

Philippe Boegner 113

Did you start very young?
I don’t know anymore, I can say only that there was a visual tradition
in my family: my father drew. He was part of the Territoriale [France’s
regional defense forces] during World War I. I have some of his
drawings; and I had an uncle—he was killed in 1915—who was
an excellent painter: he was called [Louis] Cartier-Bresson. His name
is on the war memorial of the École [Nationale Supérieure] des
Beaux-Arts [in Paris].
For me, photography is a way of drawing, but—and this is the
wonderful thing about photography—on top of that there is an endless
fight against time: you see things disappearing; everything is fleeting.
To the girl I am taking a picture of, I can’t say: “Do that smile
again!” . . . It’s over.
Photography has fulfilled my adventurous side: it is a real trade.
I behaved like a thief in every country where I went, in China, in
Africa, in America. . . . all things considered, our trade is situated
somewhere between pickpocket and tightrope walker . . . yes, we steal
from people, we take something that belongs to them: their image,
their culture.

But that’s what you wanted.

I’ve never wanted anything. One should not want, and I do not want
to want—wanting is awful. Far Eastern concepts have been a major
influence on me.
My parents were what we call [in France] “left-wing Cathos,” but
as for me, I never had faith. In fact, when I was in that priests’ school,
Fénelon, and I was able to read for a year, I discovered a book on
Schopenhauer, which lead me to [author and mystic] Romain Rolland
and Hinduism. I am not a Christian. The truth is in Buddhism, in
Zen, in Taoism, and for me—I don’t want to shock anyone—God is
an invention of man! I also have been very influenced by Surrealism.
Basically, I am a libertarian, that is, I am against all forms of power;
but being known as a photographer is a form of power.

114 1989
When you greeted me a moment ago, you said that your
knee had been bothering you, and you added: “If you
carry a lot of cameras then you get away with it, but if
you carry only one, you get very tired from walking.”
I meant that photographers have a choice: either they have trouble
with their disks and spine if they carry a lot of cameras, or, if they
carry only one as I do, only my Leica, no bigger than my hand, you
run, you run, and in the end you have trouble with your meniscus. I
was operated on twenty-five years ago or so, and then I had no more
trouble, but after twenty-five years osteoarthritis set in and they had to
operate again. That’s it, now I can walk easily again. But before that I
walked for kilometers, twenty kilometers a day, I did not get tired . . .
all that so I could look, see, be on the crest of the wave, be present
when something is happening. What is important in photography is to
be swift, to sense things, to anticipate them.
At Magnum we never discussed photography. Capa, this
adventurer with ethics, would say to us for instance at ten in the
morning: “But what are you still doing here? Something is happening
at such and such a place, get going!” And off we went. . . . As for
the aesthetic aspect, each of us was doing what he could. Nowadays,
there are about forty [photographers] in the agency. We had a
certain idea of our work, a respect for others, and above all, [we were
determined] not to be paparazzi. For the photographer, curiosity is
essential, the terrible counterpart is indiscretion, which is a lack of
restraint.

Since, as you say, you have spent your time looking at

others’ lives, what changes have been the most striking for
you in your existence as a voyeur?
For me, the great changes go back to 1955. . . . It is the victory of
consumer society and all the consequences of this exponential
world, where the planet is plundered. I came back from the Far East
in 1950; I had spent three years in China, in India, in Indonesia,

Philippe Boegner 115

in Burma, without coming back once. I had not seen even one of my
photos; I’d been sending the negatives to Magnum.

And when you came back to Europe, you did not recognize it?
No . . . you know, I felt very much at ease in the Far East; there’s a
different view of the world. . . . Of course, here I have my friends, but
this technological world, for me, is a doomed world, doomed by itself;
it is a suicidal world. Look at some of today’s photographers: they
think, they search, they want, one can feel within them the neurosis
of today’s times . . . but as for visual joy, I don’t feel that they have it.
One feels their concerns, at times the morbid side of a world that is
suicidal.

You must like photographers like Izis [Bidermanas]?

Wonderful, and he was a good painter too. Brassaï as well, and what a
storyteller!

And [Jacques Henri] Lartigue?

His first photos! They are dazzling, joy . . . innocence.

But why is it that he was totally unrecognized for so many

years?
But why am I recognized? Absurd question! What is important in
life is experience; to have met certain people, to have been present at
certain events.

What, for instance?

I have no memory.

Don’t say that, you are thinking of something!

No, well I hope that you can feel it in my photos. Me, I’m fed up with
seeing my photos. Sure, I earn a living selling photos to collectors—
photos that I could not sell when I was young—it’s a bit absurd!

116 1989
I authenticate them by signing them and that’s it. I never thought
when I was a kid that I would earn a living that way.

Are there photos that have a high value? Like paintings?

No, but still it is a bit weird to sell what I could not sell when I
was young. Anyway, the fi rst time I really earned a living was not
from photography, it was from selling dried game meat in the Ivory
Coast.

How old were you?

It was right after my military service; I left and I lived in the Ivory
Coast for a year; I hunted in the swamps with an acetylene headlamp.
The Ivory Coast as I knew it is word for word in [Louis-Ferdinand
Céline’s 1932 novel] Voyage au bout de la nuit [Journey to the End of
the Night], it will leave its mark on me to the end of my days.

But whom did you sell your fi rst pictures to? Do you
remember?
Oh, I forget. Ah, yes! To [Lucien] Vogel of Vu, I believe.

It must have been before I became the chief editor, in 1933,

when [Louis] Martin-Chauffier worked there.
Yes, Martin-Chauffier, who was a friend of my mother’s. He belonged
to the Témoignage Chrétien [Christian testimony] movement, which
my parents liked, while for my part, as I said, I am committed to
Far Eastern concepts. My first wife was Javanese; we were activists
together for Indonesia’s independence.62
I remember in Burma, our ambassador, a very nice man, would
tell me: “It’s a bit difficult, I cannot welcome you at the embassy,
because you are on the side of the Indonesians, and my Dutch
colleague would not understand.” I pointed out to him that we could
drink coffee together on the sidewalk, and so that’s what we did. It’s
good to be an outcast! I was not ashamed. I was not being provocative.

Philippe Boegner 117

 The great thing, at that time, is that I could spend a year in a
country. Nowadays my colleagues can only go for a few days; there
are charter flights and television. Me, I blended totally with the
people. Anyway, I don’t know how to travel: I lose my passport, I do
stupid things, I get into trouble! What a joy it is to live in a country,
to make contacts, to make friends! But how sad, too, after some time,
after you have been flittering about, after you have been foraging, for
six months, for a year, and you have to say: “Good-bye, you, you are
staying—and me, I am going.”
I had the great satisfaction, but not very often, of earning a
living in the country where I was. In Mexico, I earned a living as a
Mexican photographer. In Japan, the Japanese paid me at the rate of a
Japanese photographer. It’s much more gratifying than getting a check
from France or America.
My relationship with money? When I was a kid, there was a large
mirror in my room. I cut out big letters from the Figaro or the Journal
des Débats with which I wrote on the mirror: “Where does the money
come from?”

Finally, what you liked in Japan is that your photographs

were paid as they would be to any photographer?
Absolutely!

So you aren’t happy to be Cartier-Bresson?

No. In Japan I regretted not having Asian eyes so I could go
unnoticed. This is why I don’t want to be photographed. And in Japan,
my photo-byline for the newspapers was “Hank Carter.” Once, I was
in America, in Cape Cod; it was raining, I just had had an exhibition
at the Museum of Modern Art.63 I was under an awning and there
were some guys next to me, young men, and all of a sudden I started
running with my Leica in hand, and I heard one of them say: “Look!
There goes a guy who thinks he’s Cartier-Bresson!” I had a laugh.

118 1989
Sometimes people ask me if I know him, and I answer: “Oh! I could
tell you the worst things about him—above all don’t go near him,
he is unbearable.” You have to be stone-gray, like a wall, you have
to forget yourself. I am against the “me-me-me.” . . . I hate the “me,
myself, and I.” . . . I think it was Degas who used to say: “It’s great to
be famous, as long as you remain unknown.”

It’s funny: we have been talking for a while now, and not
once have you used the word journalist—but the journalist
is the photographer.
I am not much of a journalist! For instance, I know [Edgard] Varèse
very well, yet it has never occurred to me to take his picture. It was
the same when [Rudolf] Nureyev came to Paris. . . . If my visual
appetite isn’t stimulated, I don’t lift the camera to my eye. I’ve known
tons of people I never thought of asking to pose. One exception was
[Pierre] Bonnard: he was very sweet but as soon as I took up my
camera, he’d started chewing on his muffler while saying that he had a
toothache—although he had agreed that I could photograph him. He
asked me why I had “pressed” the shutter at a particular moment, and
I answered him that I could not explain it.

Bonnard has let you photograph him, but you, you just told
me that you did not want [to be photographed].
Ah! No, I don’t want others to do to me what I do unto them. . . . Well,
I say this as a joke, but the real reason is because being photographed
disturbs me in my job as an observer. I’ve photographed Jean Renoir,
too, but that’s because I worked with him. I was his second assistant,
the first was [Jacques] Becker for one of Renoir’s movies, [André]
Swoboda for the other.
With Renoir, I worked on Partie de campagne [A Day in the
Country; 1936]; and La vie est à nous [Life Belongs to Us; 1936],
which was produced for the [French Communist] party.64 Then he

Philippe Boegner 119

had a kind of breakdown; he became disillusioned after the Moscow
trials. What I liked when I worked with him was how difficult it was.
Sometimes, if things did not go his way, he’d get depressed, but when
it “flowed” it was fantastic. And what I loved above all was working
on dialogue with him, finding the right word. That’s not all I did,
because an assistant has to do everything: at the right moment, you
had to suggest a Ping-Pong game, or a glass of Beaujolais. It was
constantly the psychological approach. . . . To tell you the truth,
Renoir’s assistant was his odd-job man. I liked Renoir tremendously.
When I started drawing he sent me a very beautiful letter—very,
very beautiful! It’s funny! Me, I don’t believe in God or the Devil, but
I have always been struck by coincidences. . . . Coincidences have
happened all the time in my life. It leaves you with a joy of sorts and
at the same time it’s as if you had been hit in the solar plexus.

Coincidence? Why do you say that about Renoir?

Because one day I was organizing letters from friends, true letters.
They were in an envelope and I tore his. And the next day, I learned
that it was the day when Jean had died!
Once in Delhi I was showing Gandhi my book of photographs.65
He looks at them carefully, page after page, without saying a word. All
of a sudden, he comes across the photo of [Paul] Claudel looking at a
hearse in front of the Brangues church. He stops and asks me what
it shows. He listens to me and repeats several times: “Death, death,
death . . . ,” then keeps turning the pages. Less than an hour after I
left Gandhi, he was murdered.
But there have been other coincidences. When I went to visit
Max Jacob—I was nineteen years old—I met Pierre Colle,66 whose
mother hailed from Quimper, like Max. Pierre took me to her house
and she told my fortune. I wanted to wander around, go to the Far
East, but she said: “No, no, later on maybe—you will go to the other
side [of the world] and you will be robbed, but you won’t care at all.”

120 1989
This happened in 1928 or 1929, and in 1934, I was in Mexico where I
signed a blank check to the expedition leader, who never gave me the
money back.
She also told me: “You will lose someone and you will grieve
deeply.” My mother’s brother was an ambassador in Rio. He fell from
a cliff and died.
In 1931 or 1932 she also told me: “You will marry someone not
from China, not from India, and not white either, and it will be a
difficult marriage.” As I have told you, in 1937 I married a Javanese
woman. She belonged to a matriarchal society. I owe her a lot, she
was a very good poet. [Jean] Paulhan and [Henri] Michaux very much
liked her poems, and I would like to get them published.
Pierre Colle’s mother also told me: “You will become quite
famous in your job,” and “When you are much older, you will marry
someone much younger than you and you will be very happy”—and
that is what happened. She also added that I would have one or two
children—I had one daughter—and predicted how I would die, more
or less.
However, she did not tell me about one thing that made a
tremendous impression in my life: my 1940 captivity.

How long did you remain a prisoner of war?

Three years, in the Black Forest first, then in the Württemberg, near
the Bavarian border. All the same, I was in thirty-five different work
commandos, so you know, for the son to a well-to-do family! That is
why I have the utmost respect for the migrant workers, because for the
Germans, we were cheap labor.

And you escaped?

Yes, three times. Me, I always feel the need to escape. And later I also
shot a movie on the return of the [war] prisoners, which I produced
together with the U.S. Office of War Information.67 The end of the film is

Philippe Boegner 121

deeply moving: it is simply the arrival into the [Gare d’]Orsay and Gare
du Nord. It’s a documentary film. I knew that I would never direct fiction
films and Renoir had told me so: he knew that I have no imagination.
I have always looked at things the way an entomologist does.

Why did you let go of photography in favor of drawing?

One day I told myself: “Enough, you have said what you have to
say; now question yourself and draw.” As a draftsman, I am a young
man—I’m fi fteen years old, me!

You had never been drawing before?

No, only painting. I couldn’t even draw my own hand! That said,
I still shoot photo-portraits. Street photography doesn’t interest
me anymore.

Did you ever photograph de Gaulle?

I wanted to photograph him as he was, a thunderous presence, and
I received a letter from him. “My dear Cartier-Bresson”—you know,
like a colonel writing to one of his lower-ranking officers—that said:
“All right for the public figure but not for the private figure, because
I have made a rule of it.” He arranged it so that I could follow him
during a trip in the Rouergue.

Did you go?

Yes, then, I don’t know on what occasion, I must have sent him an
album, and I received a handwritten letter, the stamp stuck on with
his own saliva, implying that he had seen my photographs and was
interested in the way I expressed myself about my work—that is,
the text I had written to go along with my photographs. He ended
his letter by saying: “You have seen because you have believed; you
are a happy man.” It is surprising that a man like de Gaulle took the
trouble to thank me and thought about finding a phrase. Generally

122 1989
people, if they thank you, write, for instance: “I was pleased with your
book.” What nonsense!
I knew M. [Pierre-Louis] Blanc, who was de Gaulle’s secretary: he
had gotten the okay so that I could “take his picture”—a portrait that
wouldn’t have been posed. Unfortunately, the very next day there was
a referendum, and de Gaulle was not in power anymore.
De Gaulle used to say: “With photographers, it’s like with
artillerymen: aim right, shoot fast, and then clear off.”
In truth, I mostly photographed intellectuals, scientists,
painters . . . Bonnard, as I said, Picasso, Matisse . . . and unknown
friends, just for fun.
Picasso, I photographed very badly. Matisse, yes. Picasso is a
genius, but for me the great painter is Matisse. I knew him very well
and I liked him a lot. He made a wonderful cover for my book [Images
à la sauvette/The Decisive Moment].

Do you still walk around with your camera sometimes?

No. If you want to take pictures, you need to have your camera tied
to your wrist all the time, not in the bag. Moreover, you have to
concentrate. . . . Very often in the street, I say to myself: “Hey! There
would be a picture to take here,” but it’s over, it’s too late, it’s gone!
Now I draw, and you can’t do a thousand things at the same time,
you cannot be a dabbler, and at the same time you have to challenge
yourself; otherwise the famous photographer, you know, dies from his
fame. During the opening of my exhibition the other day, [Robert]
Doisneau told me: “Be careful not to get big-headed with everything
that’s going on. . . .”
That said, there is a joy in photographing that will always exist,
it’s the joy of looking, of seizing the fraction of a second; it is the
photographic shoot, the intuitive shoot. But I don’t like confusion,
you understand? It is not right to mix things up. For me, it is not right
when photography starts to imitate painting—which it did in the last

Philippe Boegner 123

century. Similarly, it didn’t work, in the nineteenth century, when
tapestry started to imitate painting, or when stained glass wanted to
appear like painting. Genuine photography is linked to the discovery
of the portable camera. And I’ll add that to be a good photographer
you need to have culture, minimally to have read Proust and
Saint-Simon: these people knew how to look!
Once, I don’t know where, they asked me what I thought of the
Leica, and I said that it could be a big warm kiss, also a pistol shot,
or the psychoanalyst’s couch. You could do anything with the Leica.
The photograph that moves me starts with the snapshot: these are
Lartigue’s photographs.
Doisneau is someone I adore. Doisneau’s intelligence, Doisneau’s
depth, Doisneau’s humanity: he is a wonderful man.
There are many photographers I like a lot. I like to see their
work; it creates emulation. Competition does not exist, competition
is rubbish, it is a plague of our times. We are not racehorses—and
I want to tell you that I hate [team] sports. Nowadays, even the
celebrities don’t count for much; nations do! It’s terrible! It replaces
war . . . that concept of being the strongest, the best! I like physical
exercise, and I always liked solitary sports, like cycling, swimming,
walking—but competitions, no.

It is strange to say that when you have won the competition.

Well! Yes, that’s the way it is, I can’t do anything about it, what do you
want?
You know Alain Douarinou, the cameraman, we were taken
prisoner together. We had worked together earlier, on the same team,
him as a cameraman and me for photography. Well, one day in 1941
or 1942 we were working the land. He is the son of a sailor, a master
mariner. We were bored shitless, scraping away at the earth on a farm,
when all of a sudden, Alain says: “Say, Henri, imagine that on the
other side of the hill”—we were at the bottom of a valley—“imagine
that the sea is on the other side.”

124 1989
 It changed my entire life, to feel that the sea could be on the other
side: keeping your eye on the horizon. That’s what’s important.

First published as Philippe Boegner, “Cartier-Bresson: ‘Photographier n’est rien,

regarder c’est tout!’,” Figaro Magazine, no. 13,843 (February 25, 1989): 104–10.

Philippe Boegner 125

We Always Talk
Too Much

Conversation with
Pierre Assouline (1994)
Pierre Assouline: How do we begin?
Henri Cartier-Bresson: With whatever you want, as long as it is not
an interview but a conversation. Journalists want to take everything
from you, but they give nothing of themselves in exchange. I remain
very curious about others. And I do not like to be asked to explain.
“Talking photography” does not interest me. Painting, painting,
painting! It’s the only thing that counts, in my opinion. It has always
been. And they want me to talk about myself!

It is the price of fame, the fl ip side of celebrity . . .

Pffft! Rubbish! We are all known by our concierge and by the security
forces.

All right, but some of us are better known than others.

All this is rubbish. But it’s a heavy load. You have to be stone-gray
like a wall, not renounce what you really are and not give up the
things you believe in. I will always be an escaped prisoner. I have
the medal and I value it, even if it were made of chocolate, because it
represents a special spirit, something that I think is very strong. They
will never get their claws into me, especially with this prominence
thing. [Pierre] Alechinsky sent me a book in which I found this
aphorism: “Fame has caught up with him and beat the crap of honor
out of him.”

Are you still a libertarian?

Yes, and I always have been, since the moment I realized, very early
on, that there were worlds other than the Judeo-Christian and Muslim
civilizations. Anarchism is first of all an ethics. It has remained
intact. The world has changed, but not the libertarian idea, which
is the mistrust of all powers. It is thanks to that [idea] that I pulled
through that false problem of fame. To be famous as a photographer is
a form of power, and I don’t want it.

128 1994
Is that what motivates your refusal to be photographed?
Of course. It is not because of a taste for secrecy, a strategy, showing
off or whatnot. You have to go unnoticed, protect yourself at all costs.
When you are observed, it changes how you look at others. People
don’t understand this because we live in a world where you have
to be known. Isn’t it crazy, that obsession with the “I” and the
“me-me-me”? They’re all wrapped up in their frenzy of doing [things].
Leaving their mark? What vanity! What an illusion!

It’s true that we never see you on television. . . .

Me? Why should I? I am not an actor!

The Dalai Lama, whom you care about, has been on . . .

What interests me is why he did it: because he is a politician, the
head of a state, and that he wanted to attract attention to his cause.
Otherwise, for us, television is a circus with a ringmaster in the
middle. Except when it is one on one. That’s the exception. As for
movies, I avoid watching them on television. They were not made for
it. The screen is too small. The actors are no bigger than my little
fi nger.

But do you feel concerned by what is shown on television?

By this flood of uninterrupted images? They are not even images,
because it is not visual. It’s nothing. People like Julien Gracq,
Samuel Beckett, or Louis-René des Forêts do not appear on television;
among the modern writers, those are my favorites.

You’ve photographed Julien Gracq . . .

I went to his home. We were standing around, chatting. I couldn’t
do it. It didn’t work. I told him: “Sorry, bye.” I called him back
later: “Can we do it again?” And that time, I got something, with his
piercing eyes. What’s dangerous is that when you photograph someone

Pierre Assouline 129

you always have to say something. Otherwise people don’t understand.
But when you draw someone’s portrait, it is silence. . . .
But let’s talk about something besides photography. . . .

How about the classics?

I am forever rereading the same ones. Saint-Simon, whom I am
passionate about, Nietzsche, Stendhal, Montaigne, Baudelaire,
English novels, Rimbaud of course, and let’s not forget the Surrealist
Aragon, who wrote Le paysan de Paris [Paris Peasant; 1926]. And
Joyce and Proust—I never grow tired of them. In fact, the writers
I like today are the same ones that I always liked. When I reread
[Proust’s] La prisonnière [The Captive; 1923], it is with a renewed
emotion. When I leave the field of French literature, it is generally
to read about Tibetan Buddhism or Japanese Zen, which is more
approachable for Westerners.

Do you have faith?

I never had it. My parents were left-wing Catholics. But when I was a
kid, Bible stories terrified me. What I’ve retained from Catholicism
is love. That’s why I prefer the Song of Songs to the rest. What I’ve
retained from Buddhism is compassion.

But what has Buddhism brought you?

It has helped me to better grasp the question I am obsessed with:
not space, but time, the infinitely small duration, the fullness of
the instant. Time is a convention. Buddhism tells us that it is not
linear, that it does not move in one direction only. I love it when
astrophysicists like Hubert Reeves dare to say: “At this time, we don’t
know.” It’s comforting. I so hated positivism when I was young! André
Breton and Surrealism allowed me to flee from it faster. Thanks to
Buddhism, which deeply influenced me, I was able to better confront
the problem of time.

130 1994
In photography too?
In relation to that, photography is somewhat morbid. “It’s done! Go
on, next!” In Buddhism, it’s the instant that counts. People think
too much, and indiscriminately. In one of his letters, Cézanne says:
“When I paint and I start thinking, everything gets messed up.”
Nowadays, artists look less and think more. The result is academicism
calling itself avant-garde. You have to fully live in the instant, it is the
only way to be present in what you do—which explains my passion
for the Leica. It is a camera that favors the instant. Reflex cameras
on the other hand are noisy, they create a disturbance, that changes
everything. As for the Rolleiflex, it forces us to look at people through
our bellybutton, which is annoying.

Which people have had the most influence on the way you
look at the world?
First, my uncle, who in a way was my mythical father since my father,
the real one, died in the war when I was very young. My uncle
brought me to his studio. Then there was the painter André Lhote.
I took his classes at his academy. He used to tell me: “Little Surrealist,
what pretty colors!” My taste for form, composition, and geometry in
photography was born there. I can’t count, but the Golden Section,
I know where it falls. This is all done without intent. It is so much
part of me that it becomes a reflex. Right now, as I’m looking at you,
I am struck by the lines of your glasses and those of the small table
behind you. When you tilt your head slightly, one prolongs the other.
There is a formal rhythm. Even when I am not holding a camera, my
eye is constantly in a state of excitement. Looking is how I find my
pleasure.
There is another man who was a big influence on me. That was
Tériade, my friend since the 1930s. He was my guru. I never dared to
address him as “tu,” even though the difference between our ages was
not great. Out of respect. He is the one who told me twenty years ago:

Pierre Assouline 131

“You did everything you could do in photography; now you can only
regress. You should go back to painting and drawing.” It is obvious
that he was right. I immediately followed his advice.

You had nothing more to prove [in photography]?

But photography proves nothing at all. And I am not trying to prove
anything. My friend Sebastião Salgado makes extraordinary pictures
that require an enormous amount of work. They have not been
conceived by the eye of a painter, but that of a sociologist, economist,
and activist. I have the utmost respect for what he does. But he
possesses a messianic side that I do not have. It is the difference
between a novel (a real one, not a roman à thèse [didactic novel]) and
a leaflet. Simply, what you have to say is sometimes better served by
one than by the other.

In relation to the problem of time, how would you describe

your two main activities?
Photography is immediate action. Drawing is meditation. In the first
case, we are dealing with the spontaneous impulse of a perpetual
visual attention. Photography seizes the instant and its eternity. In the
second case, drawing elaborates on what our consciousness was able
to seize of that instant. That said, when you draw you have time. Not
when you photograph.

Do photography and drawing afford you different kinds

of pleasure?
The pleasure is identical: to concretize, to grapple with time. But
with photography as with drawing or painting, once it is done I want
to know whether it holds together or not. That is the real critique. I
couldn’t care less if the person to whom I show what I do likes it or
not—it takes all sorts to make a world and all that. To criticize is to
put oneself in someone else’s shoes and try to figure out what they
wanted to do. Only the “why” of things is important to me.

132 1994
That’s what you say, but when you are asked, personally, to
explain yourself . . .
I make a break for it! That’s normal. Except among pals. Because it’s
not the public’s business: they add nothing but neutrality.

But aren’t your photographs and drawings meant

to be seen?
I couldn’t care less. I do it for myself, and a few friends. The important
thing is to know where you are here and now. This presupposes
certain ethics. I do what I do because there is an internal need to
do it. It has to come out. After that . . . the way I earn my bread and
butter is shameless, as my tax auditor well knows.

But what was it that you liked about photography for so

many years?
Photographic shooting: making the picture, if you wish. It is my
passion. For three years, I lived in India, in Burma, in China, in
Indonesia. For three years, I saw practically none of the photographs I
was taking, except by chance, in newspapers.
I shot them and then sent them to Magnum. I was not interested
in the result. In photography, I am a vegetarian: like a hunter who
won’t eat his game. What excites him is that the game falls down.
Bang! Me too: shoot and that’s it. The problem is finding the right
moment, the instant. . . .

The “decisive moment”?

I have nothing against the phrase but I am stuck with this label. It
dates back to Images à la sauvette [1952], my book published by
Verve with a cover by Matisse, which was an homage to photography
in general. I had used as an epigraph a phrase by Cardinal de
Retz: “There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive
moment.” When a New York publisher [Richard Simon of Simon
and Schuster] published the book, he was inspired by the phrase

Pierre Assouline 133

and called the book The Decisive Moment.68 It has haunted me ever
since.

How do you reconcile the requirements of the decisive

moment with your taste for geometry?
The composition is born of chance. I never calculate. I have a glimpse
of a structure and I wait for something to happen within. There is no
rule. You should not try to explain the mystery too much. It is better
to be available, with a Leica close at hand. It is the ideal camera body.

And the ideal lens?

The 50 mm. Not the 35 mm: it’s too big, too wide! With that,
photographers all think they are Tintoretto. Even if everything is sharp,
it still is a distortion. With the 50 mm, you keep a certain distance. I
know, they are going to say again that I am a “classic.” I don’t care: to
me, the 50 mm remains the closest thing there is to the human gaze.
You can shoot everything with it—streets, landscapes, or portraits.
When you have the eye of a painter and a visual grammar, you work
with a 50 mm without even thinking that with a 35 mm you’d get more
depth of field. Painting, drawing, photography, documentary film: to me,
it’s all one.

In the end, you use your camera like a sketchbook?

Right. I am really implicated in what is framed in the viewfinder.
That attitude requires more than sensitivity and concentration. In my
case you also need a spirit of geometry. Only then can I forget myself.
Photography is an attitude, a way of being, a way of life . . . call it
what you wish. And suddenly, in front of a fleeting reality, you have
an intuition. A whole visual organization clicks into place. It lasts for
a fraction of a second. You hold your breath . . . you put your heart,
your head and above all your eye into it. There, it’s done. But I will
always find my pleasure in the instant, in seizing the picture and not
in pondering it later on.

134 1994
So why is it that you never let anyone reframe your photos
if need be?
It is my joy, my pleasure. The only one that I ever had reframed was
that of the future Pope [Pius XII], Cardinal Pacelli, in Montmartre, in
1938. I was working for the daily Ce Soir. The photograph had to be
“in the soup” by 11 p.m.69 I was using a view camera with a 9-by-12
plate. It really was chick-chuck, as they call photography in Turkey.
The crowd was shouting: “Vive Dieu!” Long live God! . . . I was forced
to lift the camera over my head and shoot that way. After that, in the
lab, they had to fix it. But that was the only time.

Anyway, the production lab isn’t your passion . . .

I have nothing to do with all that. It is not my job. Me, it’s shooting.
Not printing or hanging. For that, I trust my friends. For my
exhibitions, I ask only for the privilege of spending an hour alone
before the opening, and eventually I might suggest moving one or two
things.

Are there photographs that you regret having taken?

Once, I did censor myself. But . . . it’s nobody’s business.

In which situations does self-censorship intervene?

Love, violence, death. It is a question of decency. And let’s not
forget our own violence when we want to take a picture. When I am
in the Far East, I understand it perfectly if people refuse to be
photographed.

Did you often self-censor?

Bad photographs, there’s plenty of these, a lot of peelings. We are
like quicksilver, like mercury that rolls around, and you can miss
things. In 1934, in Mexico, I was very lucky . . . I had only to push
open a door. Two lesbians were making love. It was so voluptuous, so
sensual . . . I couldn’t see their faces. I pressed [the button]. It is a

Pierre Assouline 135

miracle to have been able to see that. There is nothing obscene about
it. It is physical love in all its fullness. I could never have asked them
to pose.

What does restraint mean for a photographer?

Nudes, for instance. I have never photographed any.70

But you’ve drawn some. . . .

It is not the same vision. [In] photography, I don’t like it. Degas
managed to shoot an amazing nude. But it is one of those topics
that’s nobody’s business. With drawing, it is something else. I draw
a lot of nudes. These are the hardest for me. I persist. I am really
obsessed with drawing. I sketch a lot when I visit exhibitions. I am
not an illustrator: I have no imagination. When I was Jean Renoir’s
second assistant on La règle du jeu [The Rules of the Game; 1939]
and Partie de campagne [A Day in the Country; 1936], we both
knew well that I would never be a director. Because I truly have no
imagination.

Did you learn a lot through your contact with him?

“Contact with him”: that’s exactly it. Because what was the most
nurturing when you worked close to him, it was to listen to him, to
follow him. He worked ahead for the next day, redid the dialogues;
everyone was pulling his or her weight. I knew some of the dialogues
by heart. It was the period of the Popular Front. We were in the
middle of the whirlwind, the enthusiasm and the confusion. But we
had the experience of an authentic solidarity among all the members
of the team. We had a lot of fun. I was an extra, playing a seminarian
alongside Georges Bataille in Partie de campagne.
Jacques Becker was there, Luchino Visconti too. In La règle du
jeu, among the children-extras were the grandsons of Paul Cézanne
and Auguste Renoir [Jean’s father]. What a picture! That said, I didn’t

136 1994
learn anything technically filmwise during that experience. A second
assistant would never put his eye to the viewfinder.
And I was really lacking in imagination. I still am.

And visual memory, do you have any?

If I have sketched something, then I remember it. In his Italienische
Reise [Italian Journey; 1816], Goethe says it very well: “What I have
not drawn, I have not seen.”

Do you analyze your dreams?

What?

Do you dream in black-and-white?

One of my friends, a psychoanalyst, once told me: “Henri, maybe you
are crazy, but you are not sick.” Does that suit you?

How can one look at the world like a painter while seeing
only in black-and-white?
It’s form that is primary, not light. That’s it in a nutshell.

Does that explain why you draw rather than paint?

In fact, I have a passion for color. But to use the palette, I need
my ass kicked. Maybe I’m afraid to confront the problem of
color. In photography, color is based on an elementary prism. For
the time being it can’t be any different because they have not
discovered the chemical processes that would allow the extreme
complexity of the process of decomposing and recomposing
color. Think that with pastel, for instance, there is a range of 375
shades of green! In photography, color remains a very important
tool for information. Nevertheless, it remains limited in terms of
reproduction. It remains chemical, not transcendental as it is in
painting.

Pierre Assouline 137

Which painters are in your imaginary museum?
Van Eyck, Cézanne, Uccello. I am obsessed with composition.
Matisse, of course, but Bonnard, Bonnard, Bonnard. . . . And then
the metaphysical painting of the young [Giorgio] de Chirico. Because
of the mystery. Velázquez’s Las Meninas, that is the absolute mystery.
I can’t understand it. So each time, I am overwhelmed. Sometimes,
you have to renounce knowing and explaining, you just have to look.
People identify but they don’t look. I observe them in exhibitions.
Recently I was at an exhibition on the origins of Impressionism, in
Paris, at the Grand Palais. Magnificent. People spend one or two
minutes in front of a painting, their headphones on their ears. Just
for the time of the spiel. But we are not Chartists! Painting is fi rst
aimed at the emotion, the sensibility, the gaze. History comes only
after. I had fun observing visitors at the Petit Palais exhibition on
the art of Taino sculptors. A tiny minority walks around the case
where the sculpture is displayed. For most people, looking at the
front is enough. They get close just to look at the label. Some must
be disappointed not to fi nd a price—and on to the next! But why
are they coming at all! Me, do I go to the automobile show? Loving
painting is not like that.

You have been a Surrealist?

Close to the Surrealists, rather. I knew [André] Breton, [René]
Crevel, [Max] Ernst . . . well. But I don’t like Surrealist painting.
It is literature. Magritte—the work is full of tricks. It belongs to
advertising!

Which you don’t like very much either . . .

Advertising is the spearhead of a system that would crumble without
it. It forces us to buy. The appearance of consumer society in the
1960s is the other big date of the thinking of our times, along with
the discovery of quantum mathematics. I have worked in industry, in
conditions that don’t exist anymore, but never for advertising. People

138 1994
at Magnum know that they can’t sell my photos to advertisers. No
means no.

You were always known as a rebel, but did the target for
your outrage change?
There are many people who are clear-minded about demography
or the world’s fragmentation, for instance. But there are few whose
clear-mindedness pushes into rebellion. At the best, they become
disgusted. Today, disaster has a name: techno-science, this headlong
rush of sorcerer’s apprentices. That revolts me. So does the universe
of the so-called “specialists.” And also the “generation gap.” Well,
really!

Is the gap just a sham?

But when we live on Earth, we all belong to the same generation!
We are unified as long as we live and have our feet on the same
Earth. I hate this segregation between ages as much as religious
fundamentalisms.

You don’t differentiate between young and old?

With one exception. I confess that I have problems with German
people my own age, but none with young Germans. I have no hatred.
Simply, I prefer not to have a conversation with them. Recently, I had
an exhibition in Hamburg. I went. I was very much at ease . . .

But . . .
But, but, but! . . . I was also invited to Salzburg. In the evening, at the
opera, when I crossed paths with people my age wearing tuxedos,
I constantly felt like asking them . . . you know what. . . .

What?
It is like when you see people driving a Rolls Royce. You feel like
asking them: “But where does the money come from?” Well, to

Pierre Assouline 139

Germans my age, I always feel like asking them what they were doing
during the war. . . .

Fifty years later?

I was in thirty different work Kommandos. I escaped three times.
Some of my friends were denounced, tortured, shot. You can’t forget
that. My nationality was not French, it was escaped-prisoner. I have
known real solidarity, people with such a human quality . . . people
who had taken their destiny into their own hands.

Did you see [Steven Spielberg’s 1993 fi lm] Schindler’s List?

It made me uneasy, it was very unpleasant. I thought of the friends
I lost. They were for real. In the film, it was all trumped up. There
are things that should not be touched. About genocide, [Claude
Lanzmann’s 1985 documentary] Shoah has said everything there is to
say. Extraordinary.

In everything?
Of course. Rather than reading a classic guidebook about Rouen, the
city where I spent my early childhood, I prefer reading Julien Gracq’s
La forme d’une ville [The Shape of a City; 1985—memoir about the
city of Nantes]. It is so right. It is transformed by the conduit of his
imagination, and it has nurtured me. In my mind, I crossed out Nantes
and replaced it with Rouen. Sideways, always. . . . Facts, I don’t care
about them. What’s important is their analysis and metamorphosis.

In the end, you don’t give away much . . . .

We always talk too much. We use too many words to say nothing. The
pencil and the Leica are silent.

We should not hope to read your memoirs one day . . . ?

I’m not a writer. I can only write postcards. Anyway, I don’t have the
time.

140 1994
But what do you do all day?
But what do you think? I look. . . .

First published as: Pierre Assouline, “Henri Cartier-Bresson,” Lire, no. 226–27

(July–August 1994): 30–37.

Pierre Assouline 141

Proust Questionnaire

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1998)

What is your current state of mind?
If Proust had put these questions nowadays, he might have mentioned
an attitude of revolt.

What is your most marked characteristic?

Ask others.

What is your idea of perfection?

Love.

What is your greatest fear?

Power.

What is your favorite journey?

Escaping three times as a prisoner of war.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Efficiency.

What words or phrases do you most overuse?

“Yes, yes, yes,” when I mean to say,  “Let’s see.”71

What talent would you most like to have?

To beware of facility.

If you could change one thing about your family, what

would it be?
My family, being mankind: prevent its extinction by techno-science.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Cutting my nails.

144 1998
What is the quality you most like in a man?
Integrity and intuition.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?

Integrity and intuition.

Which living person do you most despise?

I don’t believe in despising people, but in trying to understand the
reasons for their behavior.

What is it that you most dislike?

My own ignorance.

What are your heroes in real life?

Among others, thinkers of the third and fi fth centuries B.C.72
Parmenides, Heraclites, Lao-tsu, the Buddha. As far as eyes and
ears: Piero della Francesca, Bach, Rimbaud, Cézanne, Bonnard,
Degas and Proust, Elisée Reclus, Saint-Simon, Joyce, Bakunin, the
list is endless.

What is your greatest extravagance?

Imagination.

First published as “Proust Questionnaire: Henri Cartier-Bresson,” Vanity Fair

(May 1998): 256. Republished in Proust Questionnaire by Henri Cartier-Bresson
(Amiens: Le Nyctalope, 1998).

Henri Cartier-Bresson 145

Endnotes
Unless otherwise indicated, all endnotes are taken from the original edition of
this volume, Henri Cartier-Bresson: Voir est un tout—Entretiens et conversations,
1951–1998 (Paris: Éditions Centre Pompidou, 2014). Annotations from the original
authors/interviewers are noted by their initials. Additional annotations from the
French-English translator are noted as by “Trans.”

1. From Henri Cartier-Bresson, “Cuba: An Island of Pleasure Gone Adrift,” Life

(March 15, 1963): 42.

2. Henri Cartier-Bresson, L’imaginaire d’après nature (Saint-Clément-de-Rivière, France:

Fata Morgana, 1996); in English as The Mind’s Eye: Writings on Photography and
Photographers, trans. by Diana C. Stoll (New York: Aperture, 1999).

3. A French painter and illustrator, Paul Charles Chocarne-Moreau (1855–1931) is known

for his Parisian genre scenes.

4. In French, à pas de loup: “with a wolf ’s steps.”—Trans.

5. Richard L. Simon was the cofounder of the New York publishing house Simon
and Schuster, which in 1952 published The Decisive Moment, the American
edition of Images à la sauvette (Paris: Verve, 1952). In 2014, Steidl published
facsimile editions of the French and the English versions; both are packaged with
an additional booklet with an essay on the history of the publication by Clément
Chéroux.

6. Simon is referring to the first lines of the foreword by Cartier-Bresson in Images à la

sauvette/The Decisive Moment.

7. Cartier-Bresson is probably referring here to his American friend Peter Powel,

who is mentioned later in the interview. But it could also be Julien Levy, who, after
Eugène Atget’s death, bought the contents of Atget’s studio, together with Berenice
Abbott.

8. Germaine Krull was German. Cartier-Bresson’s mistake probably derived

from the fact that Krull had lived in Amsterdam for a year before coming to Paris
in 1926.

146 Endnotes
9. Simon is referring to Cartier-Bresson’s Juvisy (1938). The town of Juvisy is on the Orge
River, a tributary of the Seine, not the Marne. Cartier-Bresson, too, regularly confused the
names of the rivers Marne and Seine.—Trans.

10. Draeger Frères, the well-known Paris-based printing house that produced Images à la
sauvette/The Decisive Moment.—Trans.

11. In the French edition of Images à la sauvette/The Decisive Moment, the final line
of Cartier-Bresson’s foreword reads: “En photographie, cette organisation visuelle ne
peut être que le fait d’un sentiment spontané des rythmes plastiques”: “In photography,
visual organization can stem only from a developed instinct of plastic rhythms.” In the
English-language edition, the words “of plastic rhythms” do not appear.—Trans.

12. In French, sa silhouette de passe-muraille: “the silhouette of one who walks through
walls.”—Trans.

13. Louis de Rouvroy, Duke de Saint-Simon (1675–1755) was a soldier and writer, known
especially for his Mémoires.—Trans.

14. In French, à pas de loup: “with a wolf’s steps.”—Trans.

15. Henri Cartier-Bresson, À propos de l’URSS (Paris: Éditions du Chêne, 1973). In

English as About Russia (New York: Penguin Putnam, 1974).

16. The Photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Museum of Modern Art, New York,
February 4–April 6, 1947.

17. The Magnum Photos cooperative was founded in 1947 by Cartier-Bresson, Robert
Capa, David “Chim” Seymour, George Rodger, and William Vandivert. Vandivert left soon
after Magnum’s founding.—Trans.

18. Robert Capa, Images of War (New York: Paragraphic Books, 1950).

19. Jean-François-Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz (1613–1679) was a French ecclesiast

and memoirist, and one of the initiators of the aristocratic rebellion known as the Fronde.
—Trans.

20. Cartier-Bresson is referring here to Simone de Beauvoir.

Endnotes 147
21. Fernand Cormon (1845–1924): French painter who taught at the École des Beaux-Arts
in Paris.

22. The École des Hautes Études Commerciales in Paris, a business school.—Trans.

23. André Lhote’s Traité du paysage (1939) and Traité de la figure (1950) were
published together as Traité du paysage et de la figure (Paris: Grasset, 1958). The texts
were translated to English as Treatise on Landscape Painting (London: Zwemmer, 1950)
and Theory of Figure Painting (New York: Praeger, 1954).

24. Magnum was founded in 1947 by Capa, Seymour (“Chim”), Cartier-Bresson, and (not
mentioned here) George Rodger and William Vandivert. Vandivert left shortly after the
agency was founded.—Trans.

25. Cartier-Bresson sent a clarification to Le Monde’s editors on September 6, 1974,

the day after the publication of this interview. On September 7, Le Monde published
this note: “On ne peut nier un grand souci de la forme chez Avedon et David Hamilton
et les préoccupations de Duane Michals et Bruce Davidson n’ont rien à voir avec
la mode et la publicité, et encore moins celles de Sudre et de Diane Arbus.” (“M. Henri
Cartier-Bresson lets us know that in the interview he gave to Yves Bourde [Le Monde,
September 5], you should read: ‘A great preoccupation with form cannot be denied
in Avedon’s and David Hamilton’s work, and Duane Michals’s and Bruce Davidson’s
concerns have nothing to do with fashion and publicity, neither do Sudre’s and Diane
Arbus’s.’ ”)

26. Cartier-Bresson is referring to Eugen Herrigel’s Zen in der Kunst des Bogenschiessens
(Konstanz, Germany: Weller, 1948). In French as Le Zen dans l’art chevaleresque du tir à
l’arc (Lyons: Derain, 1955); in English as Zen in the Art of Archery (New York: Pantheon,
1953).

27. In fact, this was an alleged inscription on the pediment of the Academy founded
by Plato. See Henri-Dominique Saffrey, “Ἀγεωμέτρητος μηδεὶς εἰσίτω, Une inscription
légendaire,” Revue des études grecques 81, nos. 384–85 (January–June 1968): 67–87.

28. Volker Kahman’s Fotografie als Kunst (Tübingen, Germany: Wasmuth, 1973) was
published in France in the same year with the title La photographie est-elle un art? (Paris:
Éditions du Chêne), and subsequently in English as Photography as Art (London: Studio
Vista, 1974).—Trans.

148 Endnotes
29. A Swiss engineer of Polish descent, Stefan Kudelski (1929–2013) was the inventor of
the Nagra tape recorder in 1951.

30. André Breton, Entretiens (Paris: Gallimard, 1952). In English as Conversations:

The Autobiography of Surrealism, trans. by Mark Polizzotti (London: Marlowe,
1952; 1995).

31. See René Char, La bibliothèque est en feu (Paris: Broder, 1956). In English as This
Smoke That Carried Us: Selected Poems of René Char, trans. by Susanne Dubroff (Buffalo,
NY: White Pine Press, 2004).

32. Cartier-Bresson translates marchand de couleurs elsewhere as the French equivalent

to the American “corner drugstore.”—Trans.

33. André Lhote, Traité du paysage et de la figure (1958). In English as Treatise on

Landscape Painting (1950) and Theory of Figure Painting (1954).

34. Frise-Poulet translates roughly as “Curly Chicken.”—Trans.

35. Jean Rouvier would go on to become an eminent historian and essayist.—Trans.

36. Elena “Léna” Mumm later married the author Edmund Wilson.—G.A.T.

37. American poet Harry Crosby lived in Paris with his wife, Caresse, beginning in 1922.
Together they created a small publishing house, Black Sun Press, which published, among
much else, Hart Crane’s poem “The Bridge” with three photographs by Walker Evans.
The mill Cartier-Bresson mentions, Le Moulin du Soleil, was rented to Armand de la
Rochefoucauld.—G.A.T.

38. Tabou is a small harbor near Cape Palmas in the Ivory Coast. For further information
about this period, see Pierre Assouline, Henri Cartier-Bresson: A Biography (London:
Thames and Hudson, 2013).—G.A.T. [2013 note]

39. Lines from Jean Cocteau’s poem “Fête de Montmartre” (1920), in idem., Poésies 1920
(Paris: Éditions de la Sirène, 1920).—Trans.

40. Photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson: Anti-Graphic Photography, Julien Levy

Gallery, New York, September 25–October 16, 1933.—Trans.

Endnotes 149
41. Guadalupe Marin was, in fact, Rivera’s second wife. His first marriage, to Angelina
Beloff, took place when he lived in France in the first decade of the twentieth century; the
couple gave birth to a son who died in infancy.—G.A.T. [2013 note]

42. Ignacio Aguirre (1900–1990), known as “Nacho,” was a Mexican painter. In

Cartier-Bresson’s 1934 photograph sometimes titled Santa Clara, Aguirre is the figure
posing with crossed arms. See Peter Galassi, Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Early Work
(New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1987).—G.A.T.

43. Excélsior is a magazine published in Mexico City.—G.A.T.

44. See also Juan Rulfo’s account, “Le Mexique des années trente vu par Cartier-
Bresson,” in Henri Cartier-Bresson: Carnets de notes sur le Mexique (Paris: Centre Cultural
de Mexique, 1984), n.p.—G.A.T.

45. American poet Charles Henri Ford later became the editor of the New York Surrealist
journal View.—G.A.T.

46. Cartier-Bresson met the composer Nicolas Nabokov in Paris, through the gallerist
Pierre Colle.—G.A.T.

47. For more on Cartier-Bresson and Helen Levitt, see Maria Morris Hambourg and
Sandra S. Phillips, “Helen Levitt: A Life in Part,” in idem., Helen Levitt (San Francisco:
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1994), 48.—G.A.T.

48. For more on Cartier-Bresson, Douarinou, and Guérin, see the biography by
Jean-Paul Kauffmann, Raymond Guérin: 31, allées Damour (Paris: Table Ronde,
“La petite vermillon,” 2004, 2007), 115–17.—G.A.T. [2013 note]

49. The film is Victoire de la vie (Return to Life), a 1937 documentary on the hospitals
in Republican Spain. For further information on Cartier-Bresson’s films, see Serge
Toubiana, “L’oeil en movement,” in Philippe Arbaïzar, Jean Clair, Claude Cookman, et al.,
Henri Cartier-Bresson: De qui s’agit-il? (Paris: Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson/
Gallimard/Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 2003).—G.A.T. In English as Henri
Cartier-Bresson: The Man, the Image, and the World (London, New York: Thames and
Hudson, 2003).—Trans.

50. Georges Sadoul was a Surrealist, historian of cinema, and Cartier-Bresson’s

brother-in-law.—G.A.T.

150 Endnotes
51. The reference is to George VI’s coronation, in May 1937. Cartier-Bresson, who had just
been hired by Ce Soir, a Communist daily founded by Louis Aragon in March of the same
year, covered the event along with Paul Nizan.—G.A.T.

52. Cartier-Bresson sailed for Africa in October 1930 and stayed for more than a year.

53. The four films by Cartier-Bresson referenced here are: Victoire de la vie (Return to
Life; 1938); Le retour (The Return; 1945); California Impressions (1969–70); and Southern
Exposures (1969–70). He was also the director of the films With the Abraham Lincoln
Brigade in Spain (1937–38) and L’Espagne vivra (Spain Will Live; 1938).

54. Henri Cartier-Bresson: Photographe (Paris: Delpire, 1979). In English as Henri

Cartier-Bresson: Photographer (New York: New York Graphic Society, 1979; reissued by
Bulfinch Press, 1992).—Trans.

55. George Rodger, not mentioned here, was also a Magnum cofounder. The American
photographer William Vandivert, originally among the founders, dropped out of the group
shortly after Magnum was formed.—Trans.

56. The Photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Museum of Modern Art, New York,
February 4–April 7, 1947. During its planning, the exhibition was deemed posthumous;
the curators thought that Cartier-Bresson had died during the war.

57. Henri Cartier-Bresson, Photoportraits (London: Thames and Hudson; Paris: Gallimard,
1985).

58. A handwritten note, signed by Cartier-Bresson and dated November 27, 1985, reading:
“Le débat sur le grade et la place que l’on devrait conférer a [sic] la photographie parmi
les arts plastiques ne m’a jamais préoccupé, car ce problème de hiérarchie m’a toujours
semblé d’essence purement académique.” (“The debate about the importance and place
that should be assigned to photography among the visual arts has never preoccupied me, as
this hierarchy problem always seemed to me essentially academic.” The note is reproduced
in Les Cahiers de la Photographie, no. 18 (1986): 5.

59. Marcel Proust, À la recherche du temps perdu, vol. 7, Le temps retrouvé (first published
1927). In English as In Search of Lost Time, vol. 6, Time Regained (New York: Modern
Library, 2003), 298.—Trans.

Endnotes 151
60. See Cartier-Bresson’s interview with Simon, “Photography Is Very Difficult,” in the
present volume, pp. 15–29.

61. The foreword to Images à la sauvette, as republished in Les Cahiers de la

Photographie, has a postscript by Cartier-Bresson dated December 2, 1985. See Les
Cahiers de la Photographie, no. 18 (1986): 20.

62. From 1937 to 1967, Cartier-Bresson was married to Carolina Jeanne de Souza-Ijke,
known as “Ratna Mohini” or “Eli,” an Indonesian dancer.

63. The Photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Museum of Modern Art, New York,
February 4–April 6, 1947.

64. Cartier-Bresson also worked with Renoir on La règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game;
1939). He worked alongside Becker on Partie de campagne and with Swoboda on La règle
du jeu, and with both of them on La vie est à nous.—Trans.

65. The book Cartier-Bresson refers to is the catalogue to his 1947 MoMA exhibition.

66. Pierre Colle was a Parisian gallery owner associated with the Surrealists.

67. Le retour (The Return; 1945) was commissioned by the U.S. Office of War Information.

68. See Cartier-Bresson’s interview with Simon, “Photography Is Very Difficult,” in the
present volume, pp. 15–29.

69. “Dans la soupe”: that is, developed.—Trans.

70. Nudes are indeed rare in Cartier-Bresson’s oeuvre, but not entirely absent from
it.—Trans.

71. Cartier-Bresson was very fond of the ending of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses (Molly
Bloom: “yes I said yes I will Yes”), of which he suggests here an abbreviated version.

72. Actually, the figures Cartier-Bresson mentions lived in the fifth and sixth centuries BCE.

152 Endnotes
Bibliography of Selected
Interviews with Henri Cartier-Bresson
Published Interviews
Masclet, Daniel. “Un reporter . . . Henri Cartier-Bresson: Interview de Daniel Masclet du
Groupe des XV.” Photo-France, no. 7 (May 1951): 28–33.

“Cartier-Bresson: Ne désincarnez pas ce que vous photographiez.” Arts, no. 433

(October 15–21, 1953): 10.

“La photographie, qu’est-ce que c’est? Un entretien avec H. Cartier-Bresson.” Témoignage

Chrétien, no. 516 (May 28, 1954): 6.

Dobell, Byron. “A Conversation with Henri Cartier-Bresson.” Popular Photography 40,

no. 9 (September 1957): 130–32. (Interview conducted May 24, 1957.)

“Photographie: En lisant Saint-Simon.” L’Express, no. 385 (October 30, 1958): 21.

“One-Man Shows Are Best.” Infinity (December 1959): 13–14, 20.

Baby, Yvonne. “ ‘Le dur plaisir’ de Henri Cartier-Bresson.” L’Express, no. 524 (June 29,
1961): 34–35. Published in English as “Henri Cartier-Bresson on the Art of Photography,”
Harper’s Magazine 223, no. 1,338 (November 1961): 73–78.

Dentan, Yves. “Un portrait d’Henri Cartier-Bresson.” Réforme, no. 1,133 (December 3,

1966): 16.

Lattès, Jean. “Henri Cartier-Bresson, ou la volupté de l’oeil.” Journalistes Reporters

Photographes, no. 12 (January–March 1967): 6–13.

“L’univers noir et blanc d’Henri Cartier-Bresson.” Photo, no. 15 (December 1, 1968):

24–35, 93, 95, 97.

“Questionnaire by the newspaper Manchete, Brazil.” Typewritten annotated

manuscript dated March 6, 1969, in the archives of the Fondation Henri Cartier-
Bresson, Paris.

Sroulevich, Nei. “Cartier-Bresson: O homen que cria um mundo nôvo em uma fração de
segundo.” Fatos e Fotos 8, no. 432 (May 15, 1969): 60–67.

“Henri Cartier-Bresson: Vigilância en prêto e blanco.” Caderno B: Jornal do Brasil

(July 11, 1970): 4–5.

Bibliography 153
Lévêque, Jean-Jacques. “Henri Cartier-Bresson: Ma lutte avec le temps.” Les Nouvelles
Littéraires, no. 2,249 (October 29, 1970): 10.

Bothorel, Jean. “Un aristocrate de la photo: Henri Cartier-Bresson regarde vivre les
français.” La Vie Catholique, no. 1,319 (November 18–24, 1970): 31–33.

Bourde, Yves. “Les érotiques de Cartier-Bresson.” Photo, no. 57 (June 1972): 72–81, 126.

Turner-Seed, Sheila. “Henri Cartier-Bresson: Interview by Sheila Turner-Seed.” Popular

Photography 74, no. 5 (May 1974): 108, 117, 139, 142, 198. (Excerpted from an interview
conducted in spring 1973.)

Bourde, Yves. “Un entretien avec Henri Cartier-Bresson: ‘Nul ne peut entrer ici s’il n’est
pas géomètre.’ ” Le Monde, no. 1,350 (September 5, 1974): 13. Published in English as
“Henri Cartier-Bresson Talks to Yves Bourde: The Camera as ‘Optical, Mechanical
Sketchbook.’ ” Guardian, September 28, 1974, 14. Excerpts from this interview were
republished as “Un entretien avec Henri Cartier-Bresson.” In Henri Cartier-Bresson:
70 photographies. Marseille: École d’art et d’architecture de Luminy, 1977.

“H.C.B. vu par Cartier-Bresson,” Photo, no. 88 (November 1974): 49, 114.

Hill, Paul, and Thomas Cooper. “Henri Cartier-Bresson.” In Dialogue with Photography,
74–79. Manchester, UK: Cornerhouse, 1979. (Interview conducted November 1977.)

Desvergnes, Alain. “ HCB à la question,” Photo, no. 144 (September 1, 1979): 86, 87, 98.
Excerpts from Desvergnes’s recorded interview with Cartier-Bresson, broadcast during
a slide show of Cartier-Bresson’s photographs, projected at the Théâtre Antique in Arles
during the Rencontres d’Arles, July 1979.

Whelan, Richard. “Cartier-Bresson: ‘For Me, Photography Is a Physical Pleasure,’ ” Art
News 78, no. 9 (November 1979): 120–30.

Guibert, Hervé. “Rencontre avec Henri Cartier-Bresson: La photographie comme tir à l’arc,
Le dessin comme gant de crin.” Le Monde, no. 11,119 (October 30, 1980): 17–18.

———. “Henri Cartier-Bresson: La patience de l’homme invisible.” Le Monde, no. 12,076

(November 24, 1983): 16.

Scianna, Ferdinando. “Conversation Without Inverted Commas with H.C.-B.” In The Great
Photographers: Henri Cartier-Bresson, 57–60. London: William Collins and Sons, 1984.

Guibert, Hervé. “Cartier-Bresson: ‘Photoportraits’ sans guillemets.” Le Monde, no. 12,658

(October 10, 1985): 25O.

Mora, Gilles. “Henri Cartier-Bresson, Gilles Mora: Conversation.” Les Cahiers de la

Photographie, no. 18 (1986): 117–25. Published in Italian as “Fotografare, che duro
divertimento.” Corriere della Sera, April 9, 1986, 15.

154 Bibliography
Peppiatt, Michael. “Artist’s Dialogue: Henri Cartier-Bresson—Drawing on an Old Passion.”
Architectural Digest 44, no. 1 (January 1987): 40, 44, 46.

“Henri Cartier-Bresson: Draughtsman and Photographer.” Art International, no. 1 (Fall

1987): 69–73.

Kšajt, František. “Žijící legenda v pražské vystavní síni.” Tvorba (June 22, 1988).

Boegner, Philippe. “Cartier-Bresson: ‘Photographier n’est rien, regarder c’est tout!,’ ” Figaro
Magazine, no. 13,843 (February 25, 1989): 104–10.

Hopkinson, Amanda. “Interview with Henri Cartier-Bresson.” British Journal of

Photography 136, no. 6,741 (October 26, 1989): 12–19.

Cartier-Bresson, Henri. “Magnum, le Zen et le tir à l’art.” Le Monde, no. 13,974

(January 25, 1990): 2.

Schisa, Brunella. “Ritratto di un mito senza volto.” Venerdi di Repubblica (June 8, 1990):
124–29.

Ellis, Eric. “Cartier-Bresson Talks! A Life of Fleeting Moments.” Good Weekend (August 17,
1991): 20–27.

Cressard, Armelle. “Renseignements généreux: Le bon plaisir–Légende sur photos.” Le

Monde, Radio-Télévision, no. 14,498 (September 9–15, 1991): 25.

Guerrin, Michel. “Rencontre avec Henri Cartier-Bresson: La jouissance de l’oeil,” Le

Monde, no. 14,544 (November 21, 1991): 19–21. Published in English as “An Interview
with Henri Cartier-Bresson.” Visual Anthropology 5, no. 3–4 (1993): 331–37.

Boudier, Laurent. “La volupté de la vie.” Télérama. Hors-Série, no. 42 (January 1993): 90–94.

Lindon, Mathieu. “Rétrospective Cartier-Renoir.” Libération, no. 4,044 (May 21–22, 1994):

23–24.

Berger, John. “La vie Henri,” Sunday Times (London; May 29, 1994): 38–49. Republished
as “On Location with Henri Cartier-Bresson,” Aperture, no. 138 (Winter 1995): 12–23.

“S’évader.” Le Monde: Arts et Spectacles, no. 15,372 (June 30, 1994): 3.

Nuridsany, Michel. “Henri Cartier-Bresson: L’artisan qui refuse d’être un artiste.” Le

Figaro, no. 15,529 (July 26, 1994): 13. Published in English as “The Moment That Counts:
An Interview with Henri Cartier-Bresson.” New York Review of Books 42, no. 4 (March 2,
1995): 17–18.

Assouline, Pierre. “Henri Cartier-Bresson.” Lire, no. 226–27 (July–August 1994): 30–37.

Published in Spanish as “Un instante tan pleno.” La Nación, section 6 (August 9, 1998): 2–3.

Bibliography 155
Dagen, Philippe. “Henri Cartier-Bresson raconte sa passion pour le dessin.” Le Monde,
no. 15,590 (March 11, 1995): 28.

Tyler, Christian. “Exposed: The Camera-Shy Photographer.” Financial Times, no. 32,929

(March 9–10, 1996): 20.

Leirner, Sheila. “HCB: ‘Nunca somos novos, tudo jà foi dito,’ ” O Estado de São Paulo
(June 15, 1996): 4–5.

Sviblova, Olga. “Henri Cartier-Bresson.” Matador (January–February 1997): 92–97.

Guerrin, Michel. “Quelques instants vrais dans la vie de HCB.” Le Monde, no. 16,221
(March 21, 1997): 29.

Cartier-Bresson, Henri. “Magnum: The Founders.” In Russell Miller, Magnum: Fifty Years
at the Front Line of History, 46–48. New York: Grove Press, 1997.

“Henri Cartier-Bresson: Objectif croquis.” Télérama, no. 82 (special edition, 1997):

44–45.

Guerrin, Michel. “Henri Cartier-Bresson raconte ses ‘années Bazaar.’ ” Le Monde,

no. 16,515 (March 3, 1998): 27.

“Proust Questionnaire: Henri Cartier-Bresson.” Vanity Fair (May 1998): 256.

Republished in Proust Questionnaire by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Amiens, France: Le
Nyctalope, 1998.

Dörrie, Doris. “Magie des Augenblicks: Henri Cartier-Bresson.” Frankfurter Allgemeine

Magazin 34, no. 964 (August 21, 1998): 29.

Guerrin, Michel. “Ils ont fait Paris Match: Les glorieux du grand reportage.” Le Monde,
no. 16,710 (October 17, 1998): 12.

Allroggen, Antje. “Henri Cartier-Bresson wie ein Taschendieb.” Focus, no. 45 (1998):
163–66.

Guerrin, Michel. “Henri Cartier-Bresson: ‘La honte me monte à la gorge.’ ” Le Monde,

no. 16,992 (September 12–13, 1999): 8.

Vernier-Palliez, Claudine. “Cartier-Bresson: L’oeil qui peint.” Paris Match, no. 2,633

(November 11, 1999): 46–48.

Barsacq, Stéphane. “Henri Cartier-Bresson.” Le Figaro Magazine, no. 17,221

(December 24, 1999): 60.

Cojean, Annick. “Chers Parents: Henri Cartier-Bresson.” Le Monde, no. 17,908 (August 23,

2002): 8.

156 Bibliography
Guerrin, Michel. “Cartier-Bresson, le photographe decisive.” Le Monde, no. 18,120
(April 23, 2003): 18–19.

Ollier, Brigitte. “Henri Cartier-Bresson: ‘Moi, je n’ai aucune imagination, je regarde.’ ”

Libération, no. 6,830 (special edition, April 29, 2003): 4.

Fouchet, Jeanne. “Henri Cartier-Bresson: Naissance d’un mythe.” Paris Photo Magazine
International, no. 25 (April–May 2003): 34–45.

Stoll, Diana C. “Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Grace of Intuition,” Aperture, no. 171 (Summer
2003): 44–61.

Guerrin, Michel. “Henri Cartier-Bresson: La géométrie du vivant.” Le Monde, no. 18,515

(August 6, 2004): 15–18.

Robin, Marie-Monique. “Le monde selon Henri Cartier-Bresson.” In Les 100 Photos du
siècle. Paris: Agence Capa/Éditions Binôme, 2004.

Tiberghien, Gilles A. “Le dur plaisir de photographier: Entretien avec Henri Cartier-
Bresson.” Les Cahiers du Musée National d’Art Moderne, no. 92 (Summer 2005): 55–63.
(Interview conducted in 1986.)

Guerrin, Michel, ed. Henri Cartier-Bresson et “Le Monde.” Paris: Gallimard, 2008.

Obrist, Hans Ulrich. “Henri Cartier-Bresson et Martine Franck.” In Conversations, vol. 1,

113–25. Paris: Manuella Éditions, 2008. (Interview conducted in 2003.)

Peppiatt, Michael. “Henri Cartier-Bresson.” In Interviews with Artists, 1966–2012, 179–82,

277–79. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012.

Recorded Interviews
Interview with Richard L. Simon (ca. 1952), transcribed and annotated document, in
Richard L. Simon archive at Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library,
New York.

Interview with Jean Moskowitz (ca. 1958), recorded on LP for the series Famous
Photographers Tell How; production by Louis Stettner. 10 minutes.

Interview with Sheila Turner-Seed (1973). 240 minutes. Excerpts published in Sheila
Turner-Seed, “Henri Cartier-Bresson: Interview with Sheila Turner-Seed.” Popular
Photography, no. 5 (May 1974): 108–17, 139, 142.

Interview with Alain Desvergnes, broadcast during a projection of Cartier-Bresson’s

photographs at the Théâtre Antique during the Rencontres d’Arles (July 1979). 49

Bibliography 157
minutes. Excerpts published in Alain Desvergnes, “HCB à la question,” Photo, no. 144
(September 1, 1979): 86, 87, 98.

Interview with Vera Feyder, Le bon plaisir d’Henri Cartier-Bresson, Radio France Culture,
broadcast September 14, 1991. 270 minutes.

Interview with Ferdinando Scianna, Radio Lampi d’Estate, broadcast September 7, 1998.

82 minutes.

Interview with Susan Stamberg, NPR News Radio, broadcast July 3, 2003. 9 minutes.

Video Interviews
Henri Cartier-Bresson: L’aventure moderne, 1962. Film by Roger Kahane for the Office de
Radiodiffusion Télévision Française. 29 minutes.

H.C.B. Point d’interrogation ?, 1994. Film by Sarah Moon for Take Five Productions. 38
minutes.

La Conversation: Henri Cartier-Bresson et Laure Adler, 1997. Television broadcast for Le

cercle de minuit, produced by France 3. 64 minutes.

Henri Cartier-Bresson : Pen, Brush and Camera, 1998. Film by Patricia Wheatley, produced
by BBC. 50 minutes.

Interview with Charlie Rose, 1999. Television broadcast for 60 Minutes, produced by CBS.
55 minutes.

Profils, Henri Cartier-Bresson: L’amour tout court, 2001. Film by Raphaël O’Byrne,
produced by Film à Lou. 70 minutes.

Une journée dans l’atelier d’Henri Cartier-Bresson, 2005. Film by Caroline Thiénot Barbey.
16 minutes.

Le siècle de Cartier-Bresson, 2012. Film by Pierre Assouline, produced by Arte France,

Cinétévé and the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson. 52 minutes.

158 Bibliography
Originally published in the French language by Éditions du Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2013.

The Centre National d’Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou is a national public institution
under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture (law #75-1 of January 3, 1975).

Chairman, Director & CEO

Serge Lasvignes
Executive Director
Denis Berthomier
Director, Musée National d’Art Moderne-Centre de Création Industrielle
Bernard Blistène
Director, Département du Développement Culturel
Kathryn Weir
President, Association pour le Développement du Centre Pompidou
Jack Lang
President, Société des Amis du Musée National d’Art Moderne
Didier Grumbach

For all the texts in this volume:

© Henri Cartier-Bresson/Courtesy Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson. p. 9:
“A Reporter . . . ,” interview with Daniel Masclet (1951): © Succession Daniel Masclet
• p. 15: “Photography Is Very Difficult,” interview with Richard L. Simon (ca. 1952): all
rights reserved • p. 31: “Conversation,” interview with Byron Dobell (1957): © Popular
Photography • p. 41: “To Seize Life,” interview with Yvonne Baby (1961): © Yvonne
Baby/L’Express/1961 • p. 49: “It Jumps Out of You,” interview with Sheila Turner-Seed
(1973): all rights reserved • p. 59: “Only Geometricians May Enter,” interview with Yves
Bourde (1974): all rights reserved • p. 69: “The Main Thing Is Looking,” interview with
Alain Desvergnes (1979): © A.D. (former director of the Rencontres d’Arles and founder of
the École nationale supérieure de la photographie d’Arles) • p. 87: “ The Hard Pleasure of
Photography,” interview with Gilles A. Tiberghien (1986) : © Éditions du Centre Pompidou •
p. 99: “An Endless Play,” interview with Gilles Mora (1986): © Gilles Mora • p. 111:
“Photographing Is Nothing, Looking Is Everything!,” interview with Philippe Boegner
(1989): © Philippe Boegner/Le Figaro Magazine/02/25/1989 • p. 127: “ We Always
Talk Too Much,” conversation with Pierre Assouline (1994): © Pierre Assouline/Lire
(L’Express)/1994 • p. 143: “Proust Questionnaire: Henri Cartier-Bresson” (1998):
© Henri Cartier-Bresson/Courtesy Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Assistant Editors: Marion Diez and Amarante Szidon

Production Manager: Bernadette Borel-Lorie
Graphic Designer: Aurore Jannin

Find all new releases (books, byproducts, multimedia) on www.boutique.centrepompidou.fr

Date of original printing:

December 6, 2013, on the presses of Stipa, Montreuil-sous-Bois (93), France

159
Henri Cartier-Bresson:
Interviews and Conversations, 1951–1998
Edited and with a foreword by Clément
Chéroux and Julie Jones
The Aperture staff for this book:
Associate Editor: Samantha Marlow
Design Concept: Brian Berding
Typesetting: Westchester Publishing Services
Production Director: Nicole Moulaison
Copy Editor: Diana C. Stoll
Translator: Carole Naggar
Senior Text Editor: Susan Ciccotti
Proofreader: Sally Knapp
Work Scholar: Simon Hunegs
Additional staff of the Aperture book
program includes:
Chris Boot, Executive Director; Sarah
McNear, Deputy Director; Lesley A. Martin,
Creative Director; Amelia Lang, Managing
Editor; Kellie McLaughlin, Director of
Sales and Marketing; Richard Gregg, Sales
Director, Books; Taia Kwinter, Assistant to
the Managing Editor
Special thanks:
This book was made possible, in part, with
generous support from FACE Foundation
(French-American Cultural Exchange
Foundation) and the Cultural Services of
the French Embassy.
Translator’s acknowledgments:
My warmest thanks go to Diana Stoll,
editor extraordinaire, Fred Ritchin,
and Russet Lederman for their careful
readings. To Jean-François Cornu, for kindly
communicating the original text in English
of several interviews. And to Lesley Martin,
Samantha Marlow, and the Aperture team for
providing this gift of “hearing” my friend’s
voice once more.
First English-language edition copyright
© 2017 Aperture Foundation, Inc.; text
copyright © 2013 Henri Cartier-Bresson/
Courtesy Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson.
See page 159 for additional text credits. All
rights reserved under International and Pan-
American Copyright Conventions. No part
of this book may be reproduced in any form
whatsoever without written permission from
the publisher.
First Aperture edition, 2017
Printed by Toppan in China
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-
Publication Data
Names: Cartier-Bresson, Henri, 1908–2004,
author. | Cheroux, Clement, 1970– editor. |
Jones, Julie, 1983– editor.
Title: Henri Cartier-Bresson: Interviews and
conversations, 1951–1998 / Henri Cartier-
Bresson ; edited and foreword by Clement
Cheroux and Julie Jones.
Other titles: Interviews. English
Description: First Aperture edition. |
New York : Aperture, 2017. | Translation
of: Voir est un tout.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016051168 |
ISBN 9781597113922 (alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Cartier-Bresson,
Henri, 1908–2004—Interviews. |
Photographers—France—Interviews. |
Photography, Artistic.
Classification: LCC TR140.C295 A3 2017 |
DDC 770.92/244—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov
/2016051168
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