Mr. Triggerfinger - Henri Cartier-Bresson

Carlos
I remember seeing some black and white footage of a man, franticly rewinding his camera and shooting - this was way before the motorized camera, and actually the rewinding was not with the thumb, but with both thumb and indexfinger in a screwing-like manner. He was fast as hell! This man was onto something - he was clearly driven by excitement and passion. He was looking for tHE mOMENT!
His name was Henri Cartier-Bresson, and if you like taking pictures and don't know of this man... Then your world will expand soon!

He was born in France in 1908 and is known as the guy who developed street-photography. He was a big fan of the fast and easy 35mm camera (Leica), and eventually formed the basics of modern photojournalism.
He actually started as a painter, but in 1930 he saw a photograph that changed his world forever: Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika by Martin Munkacsi. It's a fantastic photo - a true capture of tHE mOMENT! When Cartier-Bresson saw this photo he immediately understood the possibilities in photography; eternity fixed in an instant!
With his little Leica he walked the streets and captured moments of life, without people noticing. Later he met Robert Capa and together with David Seymour and George Rodger they founded the now world famous MAGNUM PHOTOS - a cooperative picture agency owned and controlled by its members.

Henri Cartier-Bresson published in 1952 his book Images a la Sauvette. In english The Decisive Moment. In the preface Cartier-Bresson describes how life offers moments of perfection, if the photographer has an eye for them: The photographers true creativity is in a fraction of a second - when he catches life itself in a perfect composition!
Henri Cartier-Bresson passed away in 2004, 95 years old. He will forever be regarded as the master - the first one to understand the significance of tHE Moment.