We live in an entirely imagistic culture. The prevalence of TV, film, and print media saturated our daily lives with mediated images as never before. However, the popularity of social media – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram – are based on visual stimulation and seem like efforts to break every second of our lives down into 24 postable frames.
It increasingly seems that we are ever keener to clutch at time by trapping it in stills, immortalising ourselves, or just snapping something funny. Therefore we look at some advice from a range of photography experts, such as Cartier-Bresson, Steven Brooks, photographer Cecil Beaton, and Helen Levitt.
Watching Not Stopping: The Beauty of Capturing a Passing Away
French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson has become perhaps the most often cited source of inspiration for some of the most influential photographers in the late-20th century. He started out life as a painter affiliated with the surrealist movements until he discovered the Leica camera and devoted himself to photography. He pioneered candid “real life reportage”.
Cartier-Bresson wanted to capture the moment without intruding; as such he never used a flash, describing it as akin to “coming to a concert with a pistol”. He advocated that a photographer must be observant for “even the smallest thing can be a great subject”. He was famously disinterested in the camera and film he used, sticking to one camera throughout his career; he complained “people think far too much about technique and not enough about seeing”.
The Englishman who Mixed Art and Commerce to Create Fashion Photography
Cecil Beaton was diametrically opposed to Cartier-Bresson in style; he took glamorous stylised photos. But given the modern obsession with celebrity and glitzy images that swamp our magazines and websites, his influence is significant.
Beaton was a photographer for Vanity Fair in the 1920s and Vogue in the 1930s. He became known for his portraits in which the subject was merely one element in an overall decorative pattern. His aesthetic was one that played with art and artifice; his images were always chic, but sometimes bizarre and exotic as he sought to push the boundaries. Or, in Beaton’s own words: “be daring, be different, be impractical”. For him the only thing that mattered was creative vision rather than playing it safe or being ordinary.
The Happiest Photographs of Your Life: Photography as Memory
Steven Brooks, photographer, thinks that the key to a good image is that it must look “natural, classic, timeless”; in some contexts this means putting the subjects at ease, whereas in others it might mean taking a photo somewhat surreptitiously, a photojournalistic approach, so that authentic and recognizable character is captured: “no pointless poses, just keep everything real and relaxed”. This is particularly important in photography where the clients intend to review the images again and again over the years ahead – i.e. weddings, christenings, family portraits, etc.
Being able to adapt one’s style to the tastes of the client is fundamental, as such one needs to be sensitive to expectations. Providing “bespoke coverage” is important for professional photographers, like Steven Brooks. Photographer and subject must establish a rapport so that the former can better immortalize the character of the latter.
According to Steven Brooks, photographers involved in portraits and weddings must possess two key qualities: flexibility to match client tastes; calmness to put the client at ease. These two qualities, more than any others, increase the chances of taking a great photograph that will delight the client.
Street Life: Fishing in the Stream of Images
Helen Levitt is a photographer famed for her modest, poetic photographs taken on the streets of New York; she managed to capture the spirit of that city’s citizens unawares. Her career as a photographer lasted over 60 years, and all her images are shot through with a sense of humour, inventiveness and lyrical understanding of everyday life.
Levitt is little known by the public but is revered within the photographic community. She is known to be intensely private and rarely speaks on the topic of her own photography. She has described her intention as being to make “a picture that would stand up by itself” without any need to political subtext or social meaning. To capture a moment that speaks for itself without the photograph having to speak for it.
About the Author: Bob Emerald is a graduate in the history of art. He has a research interest in photographs that are important to people rather than important to history. He was inspired to write this article after studying Cartier-Bresson and meeting Steven Brooks, photographer at his sister’s wedding.