Ebisu
Henri Cartier Bresson Camera Style.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography (Syabi for short) is currently exhibiting a selection of photographs by HCB and his Japanese contemporary Kimura Ihei. It was my second trip and personally the Ihei stuff didn’t work as well for me the second trip through. Something about Bresson though-being in a crowded gallery among dozens of his photos along the wall makes for an interesting experience. Even when viewed through a sideways glance at a distance, every single one of his pictures remains poised and formally cohesive. This is impossible to experience through a book or online gallery since you need to be there in with the pictures in person. I’ve long thought that Moriyama Daido’s best work is this way as well.
The thing about photographers like Bresson and Moriyama is this- even though a lot of people’s pictures look like theirs, neither man’s best photographs look like those of anyone else.
