Landshark
Well-known
digital HCB?
Auto exposure, Auto focus, Auto anything else? He could be blind to do that part.
Oh yes, 10+ frames/sec. Then he could edit the (images) negs to find his "decisive moment". Then he could combine the images too. gotta get that stronger image.
Auto exposure, Auto focus, Auto anything else? He could be blind to do that part.
Oh yes, 10+ frames/sec. Then he could edit the (images) negs to find his "decisive moment". Then he could combine the images too. gotta get that stronger image.
Pioneer
Mentor
Naah, he'd us his cell phone for sure
airfrogusmc
Mentor
digital HCB?
Auto exposure, Auto focus, Auto anything else? He could be blind to do that part.
Oh yes, 10+ frames/sec. Then he could edit the (images) negs to find his "decisive moment". Then he could combine the images too. gotta get that stronger image.
No drives for Henri. He detested the machine gun approach. He spent his entire career perfecting seeing and finding the moment not blasting through it. If he went digital it would probably be an MM. Using the DoF scales were second nature to him so he would need auto focus becasue no auto focus in the world is faster than pre focused.
Scrambler
Well-known
Today I received a present (from myself, but a present nonetheless
After looking at the collection of pictures and reading his introductory essay on what was and what wasn't important for him about photography, I'd say he wouldn't bother with film, or anything technology- or gear-centric, and probably no classic camera either. He'd probably use a cellphone camera, or barring that, a good compact fast digicam, somewhere between a Ricoh GRD and a Nikon 1, and he'd shoot it in B&W JPEG mode.
+1 based on what I've read and the exhibition I saw. Fast, light, don't sweat the details. I suspect that if he thought at all about technology in deciding on a digital camera it would only be about shutter lag.
He wouldn't use a Leica because it's no longer the fastest, lightest, smallest decent IQ product. My money would be on a quality cellphone. And he would be just as famous!
bessadriver
Newbie
I agree. HCB was only interested in capturing the image. He often instructed his film and print processors to not alter the images in any way. I feel he would be a smart phone camera user today.
taxi38
Taxi Driver
If he was to go digital,and he just might,if only for the novelty of flipping through his images on his ipad at the end of the day,I think he'd go for a Nikon 1 V2.He was never one to worry about the ultimate in quality......,the modern excuse for "art"in photography,.....and the nikon is one of the few cameras to offer a genuine increase in the speed of taking a photograph.
noisycheese
Normal(ish) Human
Good point.
Knowing what we know of the redoubtable HCB's personality and given the fact that others did his developing and printing, I cannot see him being swept off his feet by digital cameras.
JMHO.
airfrogusmc
Mentor
We'll never know but there has been a recent convert that is on record as saying he had no interest in digital until the MM. Ralph Gibson....
I know i was never a fan of digital B&W until the MM. Not saying that film is or should take a back seat. I still love film and had to downsize some years back so lost my darkroom but the MM is an amazing B&W tool. I do think he still shoot with a rangefinder. Maybe he might choose an MM. It would be a natural progression as it was with Gibson but we will never know. We do know he loved Leica Ms.
I know i was never a fan of digital B&W until the MM. Not saying that film is or should take a back seat. I still love film and had to downsize some years back so lost my darkroom but the MM is an amazing B&W tool. I do think he still shoot with a rangefinder. Maybe he might choose an MM. It would be a natural progression as it was with Gibson but we will never know. We do know he loved Leica Ms.
sparrow6224
Well-known
He was indeed alive in the digital era but he was no longer photographing, and hadn't for years. He was only drawing. Which is what he would have continued doing.
It's not true that he told people processing his film not to alter anything in any way. He had a long relationship with his lab in Paris and particular people there. He did not want his photographs cropped by the magazines that bought them but they often went ahead and did this anyway, sometimes in absolutely gruesome ways. But in process and production he was quite aware that he was shooting slow, low contrast film often on the fly at f/8 or f/5.6 zone focused and his people in Paris knew what to do with his negatives and particularly with his prints to bring out the best of the image.
I think if he were around now as a much younger man his values regarding equipment would be different. He was in aesthetics and even in practice an underground surrealist. Robert Capa instructed him never to let the magazines know of these inclinations, to describe himself strictly as a journalist, which he did, but you can see it, the surrealist impulse, all through his work. If you follow what people are doing now, a lot of it is far from traditional photography and is often a creation of an image that was never before them, made from disparate parts. I think the creative artist in him would be thrilled with the possibilities, though at the same time I'm not sure he would have had any patience whatsoever with the post processing requirements, just as he had none with lab work. He lived for the moment when the shutter snapped. After that, spiritually speaking, he was done. Also, even if he were photographing digitally, he was not a fan of color, and much preferred black and white, and as Salgado does now (also with considerable expert assistance), he would (I think) have gone to great lengths to achieve finished prints that retained the tonal depth and richness of silver gelatin printing.
It's kind of a silly question all in all. I mean of course that if he were a younger man, young now, he would not be Henri Cartier-Bresson in any way that we understand that identity to be.
More interesting to me is Avedon, who photographed well into the digital age. What did he do??
It's not true that he told people processing his film not to alter anything in any way. He had a long relationship with his lab in Paris and particular people there. He did not want his photographs cropped by the magazines that bought them but they often went ahead and did this anyway, sometimes in absolutely gruesome ways. But in process and production he was quite aware that he was shooting slow, low contrast film often on the fly at f/8 or f/5.6 zone focused and his people in Paris knew what to do with his negatives and particularly with his prints to bring out the best of the image.
I think if he were around now as a much younger man his values regarding equipment would be different. He was in aesthetics and even in practice an underground surrealist. Robert Capa instructed him never to let the magazines know of these inclinations, to describe himself strictly as a journalist, which he did, but you can see it, the surrealist impulse, all through his work. If you follow what people are doing now, a lot of it is far from traditional photography and is often a creation of an image that was never before them, made from disparate parts. I think the creative artist in him would be thrilled with the possibilities, though at the same time I'm not sure he would have had any patience whatsoever with the post processing requirements, just as he had none with lab work. He lived for the moment when the shutter snapped. After that, spiritually speaking, he was done. Also, even if he were photographing digitally, he was not a fan of color, and much preferred black and white, and as Salgado does now (also with considerable expert assistance), he would (I think) have gone to great lengths to achieve finished prints that retained the tonal depth and richness of silver gelatin printing.
It's kind of a silly question all in all. I mean of course that if he were a younger man, young now, he would not be Henri Cartier-Bresson in any way that we understand that identity to be.
More interesting to me is Avedon, who photographed well into the digital age. What did he do??
airfrogusmc
Mentor
He only told the magazines not to crop his finished images in any way or he would bring a suit for copyright infringement. That correspondence was in the huge exhibit of his Henri Cartier-Bresson The Modern Century. THey also had some of his instruction to those that printed his work and he was pretty precise in his burning and dodging instruction. So think that he didn't have any involvement in the final part process is wrong.
And what did Gibson do? He wasn't interested at all in digital until the MM.
And what did Gibson do? He wasn't interested at all in digital until the MM.
leicapixie
Well-known
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96690
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96690
HCB is known to have processed many of his films..
The printing was done by masters who knew his preferences.
The one thing nobody has discussed is that at a certain point, his prints were regarded as ART.
Collectable art.
Re-think the digital imaging..
I think he would have jumped at it!
Not necessarily with a Leica.
An i-phone, a compact, something handy and portable.
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96690
HCB is known to have processed many of his films..
The printing was done by masters who knew his preferences.
The one thing nobody has discussed is that at a certain point, his prints were regarded as ART.
Collectable art.
Re-think the digital imaging..
I think he would have jumped at it!
Not necessarily with a Leica.
An i-phone, a compact, something handy and portable.
mickbenjamins
Member
Too much internet fighting, too few pictures.
moreorless
Member
He'd kick an ass or two that's what Henri Cartier-Bresson would do.
DNG
Film Friendly
I am changing my vote from M9 or digital >>>> To Film
Reason...
We are still not at a point where digital files can have 100 year + archive where there will be a way to read them.
Yes, BluRay has an archive life that long... BUT, will we be able to READ a BR in 100 years???
That is the problem with Digital.
Will film continue in 50 years? 75? 100? Possibly, but in basic selections of B&W and Color?
We still have 4x5,5x7,8x10,11x14 films available... so, basic 35mm choices may still be available for a long time to come..
Reason...
We are still not at a point where digital files can have 100 year + archive where there will be a way to read them.
Yes, BluRay has an archive life that long... BUT, will we be able to READ a BR in 100 years???
That is the problem with Digital.
Will film continue in 50 years? 75? 100? Possibly, but in basic selections of B&W and Color?
We still have 4x5,5x7,8x10,11x14 films available... so, basic 35mm choices may still be available for a long time to come..
Alberti
Well-known
The fact that these artist photographers, just like Corbijn as a modern equivalent, used a camera that was convenient and close to the action, and used a developer lab, means they did not care about film on/by itself. Film is a medium to get the picture out. They themselves were in and part of the action.
I like to contend:
So what would they use now: a MM, with its wide latitude, and have a digital post processing "Black Box" do the "trick" of rendering. MM offers even more latitude than their FP4 or Tri-X in Microdol. Their lab would create a special profile for them if required. Tools enough.
And:
The same reasoning goes for his color film prints of course.
I like to contend:
- They did not choose film for posteriority.
- They just looked at the assignment.
- They chose the camera for its ability to focus on the action, know the focal plane, but look through that plane transparently (this is the raison d'être of the RFF)
- They new the effects they would get with their film.
- They needed the latitude of the film.
- . . for them - its a black box, that dark room.
- All (ok, many) of them used rather fast film and hence grain and some blurred results that mixed up well in the output when enlarged well.
So what would they use now: a MM, with its wide latitude, and have a digital post processing "Black Box" do the "trick" of rendering. MM offers even more latitude than their FP4 or Tri-X in Microdol. Their lab would create a special profile for them if required. Tools enough.
And:
Once some smart guy would come up and be able to really print the micro grain of our B/W images (JPG tends to smear out what we artificially created in micro structure of the grain; spoiling the result ) we/they would be happy.
The same reasoning goes for his color film prints of course.
giganova
Well-known
Sebastiao Salgado changed from film (Leica R6) to digital (mostly Canon DSLR), so why wouldn't HCB switch to digital? Professional photographers are not nearly as obsessed with camera technology as enthusiasts are. A camera is a tool to capture your vision, nothing else, and it doesn't matter how you get there.
giganova
Well-known
Here's your answer from a statistics point of view. The likelihood of Cartier-Bresson using a Leica today is 7% and the likelihood that he would stick with film is 2%:
Rikard
Established
I guess it depends on how much he would care about the look of his images. Maybe he would settle for digital. But as I understand it, he was pretty well off, so I doubt it.
Capt. E
Established
HC never printed any of his images, so I believe digital would have been attractive to him. More immediate feedback.
He was all about the "decisive moment". He would perhaps want a Leica Monochrome with a 50 Summilux. Heck, Ansel Adams would be making digital images if he were still around (though I like to think he would still be using film primarily, probably film/digital hybrid processes).
He was all about the "decisive moment". He would perhaps want a Leica Monochrome with a 50 Summilux. Heck, Ansel Adams would be making digital images if he were still around (though I like to think he would still be using film primarily, probably film/digital hybrid processes).
Capt. E
Established
Good Points. He may have been using film along with digital. He would be working with the best masters of digital printing, as it is getting very hard to find a lab that still does wet silver prints. I feel certain he would have loved the Leica Monochrom.