Many years ago, when I was at the Rochester Institute of Technology studying to become a photographer, I used to sneak off to the library in search of inspiration. This was before the Internet and before the personal computer.
One of my favorite things to do was to watch and listen to a series of slideshows that you could temporarily checkout. There were many of these slideshows available, but without question, my four favorites were about the photographers Rich Clarkson, William Albert Allard, W. Eugene Smith and Henri Cartier-Bresson. What made these programs especially fascinating to me was that they all featured the photographers narrating the programs themselves. There was just something more personal about listening to the photographers’ own own voices. I spent hours absorbing their words and their images, becoming more enthusiastic about the possibility of becoming a photographer with each viewing.
Over the years, I had the great pleasure of meeting Rich and Bill but not Cartier-Bresson, who died in 2004 or Smith, who died in 1978. In an ironic twist, Rich was instrumental in helping me get one of my first jobs in photography. This led to another job, which led to me moving to Atlanta, where I got married and had a child. I guess that slideshow was pretty important to me.
I dredge all these old memories up because a few weeks a go, a friend of mine, Paul O’Mara, sent an email with a link to a video about the great photographer Henri-Cartier-Bresson. A month before, we had attended a magnificent showing of Cartier-Bresson’s work at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. When I finally got around to watching the video, I realized instantly that it was the same slideshow that I used to absorb with a passion 30 years earlier.
I hope you’ll take a few minutes to watch this video. It is full of genius and inspiration.
HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON – Decisive Moment, The from bt465 on Vimeo.
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