Henri Cartier-Bresson Decisive Moment

        Something I have become interested in learning more about is the decisive moment. I started to become interested in Henri Cartier-Bresson because while comparing my photos to his, I realized how staged my photos look. So far I have learned Henri grew up in Paris where he attended a small catholic school, Ecole Fenelon. Henri tried studying music but he lacked skill in that area. Henri's uncle was a painter and he introduced Henri to oil painting. Although Henri painted for a few years he eventually switched to photography.  This information is from Essential Moments Photography. The source of this information is made to promote Larry Brunt's photography. Larry has one of Henri's photos on his sight because he says he is one of his influences.          

          The information that I've been reading is from an online exhibition maintained by Marry Panzer. Mary Panzer is the Curator of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery. The topic of the website gallery was Henri's ability to capture the decisive moment. Decisive moment is a photograph that captures a climactic or specific moment, conveying the emotions and significance of the event. I have been looking to capture decisive moment in my photographs because it would bring more emotion to my photos. One thing that surprised me was that Cartier went to India and photographed Gandhi. I have recently been learning about Gandhi in history class and I am amazed that Henri was able to meet and photograph him. One thing that I wonder about this work and life is did Henri have success with decisive moment because he took many photographs or was their a specific skill?
          Being that I didn't have a lot of background information on Henri Cartier Bresson, I chose to do some more research. As I searched for another source of information about this person, I came across this additional article, Cartier-Bresson's Impact on Photojounalism. The article can be found at http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2004/08/cartier-bressons_impact_on_journalism.html. This article provided a lot of information and opinions on Henri Cartier-Bresson. The article talked about Henri's desire to help social injustice by photographing it. "The adventurer in me felt obliged to testify with a quicker instrument than a brush to the scars of the world." This statement didn't really surprise me all that much, but it did make me feel happy that Henri applied his photography to helping people struggling in other parts of the world. Many photographers only use their skills as a hobby or a source of income. Henri was able to spread the injustices of the world in an attempt to make change.
        In the article, Henri Cartier Bresson http://www.afterimagegallery.com/bresson.htm, there was a statement that made me nod my head in agreement with the writer. It was: "Henri Cartier-Bresson is widely recognized as one of the greatest photographers of the Twentieth Century." This is so true because Henri revolutionized decisive movement and travelled the world to capture important historical events. Although this quote seems very simple I decided to incorporate it into this post because I found a few articles arguing against the skill of Cartier-Bresson.
         Now that I have done this research, it makes me think more about my own work Shake Shack Meal.  All of this 
Next, with my own work, I hope to make my photo less staged and incorporate decisive moment into as many photos as possible. To do this I plan on bringing my camera with me to lunch and taking as many shots as possible.