The CD has been edited and published in 2003 by one of Werner Bischof’s sons, Marco Bischof. It is very nicely done and shows some of Bischof’s finest photographic work. For those who are interested: ISBN 0-9743555-0-X. Werner Bischof’s website is www.wernerbischof.com

Today, I received my new Epson 3800 fine art printer. I start to like it, as it really produces 100% Baryt-like fine art prints. The prints are almost threedimensional. My “old friend” Imageprint VI has gone (forever), I do not think I will use it any more. The standard Epson printer driver produces stunning results. It is the first time that I am really happy with a photo printer. I just hope that the troubles I had with the head cleaning on the Epson 2100 will disappear as well on the Epson 3800….

The decisive moment is most visible in his photograph taken in 1932 at a railroad station in Paris. It shows a jumping man a split second before his foot splashes down in a huge puddle. Trained as a drawer and painter in the classical tradition and captivated by the revival of the theory of the golden proportion, he recognized that geometric composition was very important. In the preface to his 1952 book “The Decisive Moment”, Cartier-Bresson defined his way of seeing as “the simultaneous recognition in a fraction of a second of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms.”

Moreover, Cartier-Bresson demonstrated modern photojournalism and street photography a new, humanistic, ethic. Cartier-Bresson practiced unobtrusiveness as the way to capturing unposed photographs. This allowed him to respect his subjects while also obtaining natural, revealing images. Humanism is reveiled in his images as he portraied the people he photographed with warmth, curiosity, empathy, and occasionally humor. His humanism was aligned with a social conscience.

In essence, he was a photo-jouranlist. But as the art world has claimed Cartier-Bresson, exhibiting his work in the world’s most prestigious museums and publishing it in art-book formats, his art became more well-known to a wide public: But most of his greates images would never have been taken without assignments from the picture magazines.

For me, Henri Cartier-Bresson is a highly influential artist and left marks in the way I “see”. The challenge today, with much of the traditional photojournalism of the 40s-60s largely gone, is to practice live and humanistic photography without assignments. On the other hand, I think to myself, how many times Henri Cartier-Bresson wished to be freed from the speicial wishes of the art directors and the editors-in-chief or the magazines that ordered his work? Maybe the true artist has to be truly free… Maybe this view is too extreme.?

I owe Cartier-Bresson so much, as I do also to other influential photographers whom I will shortly profile here.

Leica M6 with Leicavit

• Leica M3 (1956) with 50mm Summicron 2.0 (1955)
• Leica M6 (1982) with 35mm ASPH 1.4 (1995)
• Leica MP (2005) with 90mm 2.8 Tele-Elmarit
• Noctilux 50mm 1.2
• Hasselblad ELX and ELM with 100mm Planar CF
• Hasselblad 903 SWC with 38mm Biogon CF
• Hasselblad 501 C with 80mm Planar CF

But, please note that technique is not everything, on the contrary….