For a while now I’ve been posting short vignettes on my Instagram and Twitter. A single image and jotted down streams of awareness notes always starting “Notes made whilst …”. Usually, though not always these are nature or landscape based. Most of the photos have been made digitally: some are Read more…
I found this marvellous book, Modern Photojournalism: Origin and Evolution, 1910-1933 by Tim N. Gidal, in a local antique market. It turns out to be the first volume of a series Photography: Men and Movements. These particular men* are predominantly working in Germany from the last years of the German Read more…
A picture can paint a thousand words, or so the phrase says. Perhaps so. On a long office day, editing my back catalogue, a 5×4 slide starts talking about memories. In 2001 my world, like many other people’s, was turned upside down. On an isolated farm in Northumberland some Read more…
A collection of writing by the epitome of the reportage photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson; The Mind’s Eye, Writings on Photography and Photographers. Henri Cartier-Bresson is perhaps(anyone else for Robert Doisneau?) the most influential photojournalist the world has ever known. A co-founder of Magnum, civilised observer and skilled artist. The Mind’s Eye Read more…
A short how I do it film this weekend. I am, at heart, a monochrome photographer. It is how I learnt the game with a home made enlarger in a spare room. It is still often how I visualise an image. Nowadays of course, with digital cameras we make our Read more…
Now, I’ll admit to a little bias here. Henri Cartier-Bresson remains an inspiration to me. He and many of his contemporaries like Lee Miller, Robert Doisneau, Bill Brandt and Eve Arnold combined great technique, visual awareness and a deep sense of our shared humanity. And they allowed the stories they told to speak.
Notwithstanding my personal bias, this is a sumptuous colection of portraits; the first to be drawn entirely from the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson. The ferocious aquiline face of Samuel Beckett glaring off leftward challenging you, open the book, see what he cares.
