Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/05/25

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Subject: [Leica] Yes, H.C.-B. Was THAT Good?
From: buzz.hausner at verizon.net (buzz.hausner@verizon.net)
Date: Tue May 25 10:30:00 2004

Surely you jest.  Yes, H.C.-B. was THAT good.  A perusal or even a quick scan of any of his books or monographs will reveal startling image after startling image; they are too numerous to nameor count.

I know many people try to establish their credibility by staking a position contrary to accepted wisdom.  Sometimes this strategy works, but in the case of Henri Cartier-Bresson it is doomed to fail.  The man is a genious whose work s justly celebrated.  Where is it written that he can't take multiple shots to get the one he wants?  How does that diminish the quality of the final image?

Cartier-Bresson might not be one's favorite photographer, indeed, there are and have been many great photographers and we can all recite a list of compulsory veneration.  However, to deny that he was a great photographer is pure folly if not egomoniacal nonsense.

Buzz Hausner
> 
> From: "Beddoe, Neil" <nbeddoe@lehman.com>
> Date: 2004/05/25 Tue PM 01:14:40 EDT
> To: "'Leica Users Group'" <lug@leica-users.org>
> Subject: [Leica] Was HCB that good?
> 
> I've been trawling through my memory and the only HCB pics I remember as
> being any good are the jump, On the Banks of the Marne and the one with the
> fat man with the hat on in front of the wall with the kids running about.
> All the others I can remember are just sort of OK.  There are plenty of
> other photographers who have each produced dozens of pictures that stick in
> my mind.
> 
> Probably says more about me than it does about HCB though.
> 
> And yes, I know he isn't dead yet.
> 
> Neil>