Photo Journalism Part 1

Henri Cartier-Bresson, the godfather of photojournalism. In the early 1930's he begin to move away from his surrealist paintings and into photography; the idea of pouncing on the perfect moment in time. "I suddenly understood that a photograph could fix eternity in an instant." His images were about being in the right place, at the right time with perfect capture, in a fraction of a second. He believed that if he waited in to a space for long enough, life will come. He's famously used the Leica Camera which was small little and gave him a anonymity in a crowd and let him get his famous images. He gave himself further anonymity by painting the shiny parts of his Leica camera black. With this camera he could 'trap' real life and create the 'decisive moment'.
"For me, photography with a small camera like the Leica is an instant drawing."

This was the image that started the decisive moment in 1939, Behind the Gare St. Lazare. This photo perdicted what would happen with World War Two for Europe. The Europe was leaping into the unknown. The decisive moment for photojournalism later became from the tragedy of war. The decisive moment was about the right composition and capturing at the right moment.

The Lecia Camera was essential to photojournalism and the decisive moment. Unlike the bulky heavy tripoded cameras. The Lecia was small, lighter and easier to carry around. It was a revolutionary when it was launched in 1925. They had a new style of camera lenses, 50 mm lense.The view finder was on the left at the end, this meant you could view through one eye and the other could view the world. To the right is the Lecia I with the 50mm lense, that Bresson  acquired in Marseilles.


This style of photojournalism has stayed with us. The decisive moment has lead to photographs that shock and lead us in awe. We would not have photographs such as the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby(to the left).