Henri Cartier-Bresson and the 'Decisive Moment'

Henri Cartier-Bresson, the Godfather of photojournalism, was born on the 22nd August 1908 in Chanteloup-en-Brie, Seine-et-Marne, France. He studied art extensively throughout his early life, and started experimening with photography during the 1920's, but it wasn't until around 1931 that he started to take photos with one of the very first Leica model cameras.

After the beggining of the "photographic revolution" in the 1920's, Cartier-Bresson found himself in Africa, picking up methods he would later use in his photography from hunting, stalking his prey very much in the same way he would one-day stalk the perfect image. He even took a camera with him, to Côte d'Ivoire, but only 7 photos survived the tropical weather.

Upon his return to France, Cartier-Bresson became inspired by a photo of 3 naked African boys caught in near-sillouette, running into the surf of Lake Tanganyika by Hungarian photojournalist, Martin Munkacsi titled "Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika."
This picture is what inspired him to stop painting, and to take up photography, and with his trusty Leica I camera, became famous for this photo;

<- This photo is called Behind the Gare St. Lazare: it is one of Cartier-Bresson's most famous photographs, which created the term 'decisive moment', where a picture is taken at exactly the right second for it to cause awe, questions and even comfusion at the meaning behind the picture. The 'decisive moment' is present in a lot of Cartier-Bresson's work.
This picture foreshadows the following World War (II), the man representing Europe jumping into the unknown.

 This photo is a picture of Henri Cartier-Bresson's Leica I, which accompanied him on a lot of his photographic career. He described the camera as an extension of his eye.

It revolutionised photography, since the cameras that were around before this technology were large, clunky, and took a long time to develop photos, usually around 8-10 minutes, while the subject sat in perfect stillness.

In 1934, Henri Cartier-Bresson met a photographer named David Szymin, who later changed his name to David Seymour, and then through him, met Robert Capa. The three went on to share a studio in the early 1930's, with Capa mentoring Cartier-Bresson and taught him;
 "Don't keep the label of a surrealist photographer. Be a photojournalist. If not you will fall into mannerism. Keep surrealism in your little heart, my dear. Don't fidget. Get moving!"

Over the years, however, photojournalism and the 'decisive moment' have stayed with us, evident in pictures such as the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald (JFK's assassin),  the picture of New Yorkers relaxing and chatting while the Twin Towers burn, in 2001 and the picture of the girl who's back is on fire.