portraits

Some of the definitive portraits of personalities have been made by Cartier-Bresson. Sartre, Camus, Guevara and Marilyn Monroe are here, in a sensitive work. Bresson's "decisive moment" concept also works to a kind of photography that is usually related to posed and static pictures. He goes one step beyond a face's register.

If you are interested in portraits, then this is the book you MUST look at. It contains the best portraits ever made. Just get it, it can only enrich your life.

C-B's portraits challenge his journalistic work with their grace and power. I almost find them to be more historically important than his other work for two reasons- 1) his style photojournalism is artful but perhaps less documentative than it could be. 2) The significant style with which he captures his often famous portaitees encapsulates their entire being- they are often the first image to come to mind when one thinks of the sitter, they are simply extremely telling and powerful pictures.