Henri Cartier-Bresson Place de l'Europe

 

Henri Cartier-Bresson. Place de l'Europe. Leica rangefinder camera. Saint Lazare station, Paris, France. 1932

I know that this photo is an action photo, I don’t know too much about the photo but it’s a very interesting photo. It looks like a man about to walk on a puddle or a body of water in a town. It looks almost like he is about to run on water. I also see that he just stepped off a ladder or some floating object in the water. And the man in the background looks like he is watching something out of this world. 

1.      What interests me about the photograph is how the photographer got the perfect photo of the man about to touch the water, it looks like he was just about to start running on it, and makes me imagine a man running on water. I am also interested in the scenery of the photo. 1.      What I see in the photo is a man about to run on a puddle or body of water. It looks like to me he is running on a mirror or glass. I also notice that there are not many people around watching him. The man looks like he is a superhuman that can run on water. The picture is not very bright but I can tell it is around mid-day when the sun is out, the picture is in black and white so it makes my mind imagine what the colors are. The differences in the shades of black and white throughout the picture give me a hint at what the picture would look like if It was in color. There are not many patterns in the photo, but there is a bit of space. I also see that the man in the background is watching the man in the water, it looks like he is about to watch something out of this world happen. it makes you think about what will happen next? This picture also reminds me a little bit of how Jesus Christ could walk on water, I say this because the man in the photo looks like he is about to walk on water.

      The name of the photograph is called Place de l’Europe, it is Henri Cartier-Bresson’s most famous photo. Henri used a Leica 35 mm rangefinder camera which was equipped with a normal 50 mm lens (a fact is he often wrapped black tape around the camera’s chrome body to make it less conspicuous). The photo was taken in 1932 in Paris, France. The location of the photo was at the Saint Lazare station which is one of the six large mainline railway stations in Paris and was taken in 1932. As you can see the station is flooded. What was happening during the time this photo was created is Hitler was about to become Chancellor of Germany, the great depression was about to end, Franklin D. Roosevelt become president of the United States, Amelia Earhart completes the first non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean by a woman, BBC has its first TV programming, and the Winter Olympics were held in Lake Placid, New York. I don’t think these events could have influenced the content of the photograph, Only Hitler becoming Chancellor of Germany could have affected the photo but he didn’t start doing anything serious until 1934. So none of these events affected the photo. What inspired Henri to become a photographer is when he saw a photo by Hungarian photographer, Martin Munkacsi, of three boys running naked into waves on an African beach. The image of their silhouetted bodies captured a moment in time so strikingly that Henri was inspired to pursue photography. What also inspired him was his father, which was a respected and wealthy textile merchant, and his uncle who was an accomplished painter. The camera Henri used was a Leica 35mm rangefinder camera. A lot of people say that this was Henri Cartier-Bresson’s best photograph ever token and the most famous photograph by Henri. Lots of museums have life stories and some work by Henri. He is the pioneer of the genre of street photography.

1.      I didn’t know that this photo was taken by such a small camera, as well I didn’t know that this photograph genre was in the street photography genre. I didn’t know that Henri pioneered the art of street photography and didn’t know he was one of the greatest street photographers ever.