HCB at the MoMA in NYC

I don't usually say to myself, "Gee, I wish I could go to New York City." I'm more likely to sit back and thank God that I'm here in Texas. But today I'm wishing I could hop a plane to NYC, having just learned about the MoMA's new show featuring the works of Henri Cartier-Bresson.

http://moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2010/henricartierbresson/#/

The link provides a slideshow with a generous sample of images. 

HCB (as he so often referred to by photographers) is the Picasso of photography in the first half of the twentieth century—that is, the dominant figure, the genius everybody who knows even a little about photography thinks of first when trying to think of a "great" photographer. 


And genius he surely was. Like all of the great photographers I really admire, Cartier-Bresson inspires me to admire his eye and his imagination rather than his technical prowess. I don't ask myself, "What f-stop did he use for this photo?" Instead I ask myself, "How did he manage to put himself in position to photograph this extraordinary moment? How did he see it coming? If he arranged it, how was he able to imagine this image—and how did he manage to make it look so totally spontaneous?" 


Occasionally, I put myself in a great spot on purpose, and I'm excited (and a little proud of myself) when I do it. I was proud to have hauled my butt out of bed to photograph the lake in the deep fog, and later, in the middle of the blizzard of February 11 (2010). I had the lake to myself, by and large, and I did get some nice photos as a reward. 


But photographing the lake in a snowstorm is relatively easy—and obvious. Just wait for a snowstorm, then go out with a camera. What's amazing about Cartier-Bresson's images is that they almost always involve people. And people are less easily managed than landscapes. Consider this great image:

Henri Cartier-Bresson: Hyères, France, 1932.
Photo linked from the history of photography blog of Jeff Curto, College of DuPage.

I can imagine myself being fascinated by this staircase, if I somehow managed to put myself at the top of it. But to get the cyclist into the photo, well, of course it seems obvious in retrospect, but trust me, it wasn't. And to get the cyclist going in that direction, and to capture the cyclist in exactly that position—that's perfection or pretty close.

Too much of a good thing

You can have too much of a good thing, and sometimes that good thing is color. I was reminded of this recently when I posted here about my upcoming portrait sessions at the Dallas Arboretum. I included a shot from a previous year, showing a lovely mother and daughter, both red-haired. I felt that the red hair was so striking, it distracted from their faces in a photograph in a way that it wouldn't in real life, and I preferred a duo-tone version of the shot to the color original.

In this post I want to expand on that theme. But this time, I want to talk not about people, who almost always look interesting in black and white, but rather, about flowers and trees. The point I want to make about flowers is that, sometimes, a black and white conversion of photos is actually a more compelling photo.

Color is good, sometimes

Here, for example, is a simple photograph of some flowers at the Dallas Arboretum.

It isn't a great photo, to be sure, but whatever interest it has comes from the combination of color and depth. Converting this image to black and white would kill it.

But consider this photo:

The center of interest here is obviously the great, old tree, which looks like something you might run into if you went on vacation with Frodo the Hobbit. But the power of the tree is diminished by the colors in the photo: by the young, green grass, and the sunny blue sky. The clumps of green grass are particularly problematic. Green really grabs people's attention.

Converted to black and white, the tree really comes into its own:

It is still clear, to anybody who is able to see the details, that it's a bright sunny day. The sky is still bright and only partly cloudy. The young clumps of grass are still popping up from the ground. But the black and white version of the photo emphasizes not just the age of the tree but its gnarled magnificence. The color photo is a nice snapshot of a big old tree. The black and white version is (to my tastes, anyway) a much more striking image.

Taste and interpretation

I'd like to digress for just a second into a couple of points that may strike some as a bit academic.

First, taste. It is true that people's tastes differ. I bring this up because some people simply do not like black and white photos or, for that matter, black and white movies. If you are the sort of person who simply thinks that a black and white photo of flowers is stupid, well, I pity you, because you've shut yourself off from most of the greatest photographs ever taken. But I don't expect I'll be able to persuade you otherwise.

Second, interpretation. You don't have to be terribly clever to make up an interpretation that appears to justify any artistic decision, no matter how wrong-headed. If you didn't like the black and white treatment, you could say that the green grass represents young life, which stands in contrast to the old, dying tree, and that converting to black and white robs the photo of its meaning. But some interpretations are better than others, and some interpretations are just wrong. This photo isn't about the contrast between youth and old age, at least not primarily. It's about the tree by itself. In color, it's a weak picture of a contrast between life and death. In black and white, it's a strong picture of an old tree.

Flowers and color

So perhaps you agree that the tree photo is more impressive in black and white. But surely photos have to be in color, right?

Not always. This is a pretty ordinary snapshot:

I think the main problem with the shot is that the flowers are too colorful. I've tried here to tone them down a bit, and they're still too colorful. You have to visit the Dallas Arboretum and see for yourself: The colors of some of the flowers are so vivid, they're literally almost unbelievable, that is, they don't seem real.

Here is the same photo, converted to black and white:

Conversion to black and white doesn't take an ordinary snapshot and turn it into a masterpiece. It's still an ordinary snapshot, but it's more appealing, subtler, not so loud. With the colors removed, you can see the light. Viewed at a larger size, the subtle shading of the flowers in the bed becomes more pronounced.

Reality vs photography, prose vs poetry

My guess is that about a third of the photos I take are more effective after conversion to black and white, and perhaps another third really need to be in color, with the third in the middle being able to go either way. The third that really need to be in color, are of subjects that simply could not be well photographed back in the days before color photography. The third that really want to be black and white are the subjects that we miss seeing today, because we too often simply fail to think about black and white as an option. It's hard to get black and white film processed anywhere these days, and it's not easy to get good black and white prints made at the usual outlets. And many casual photographers aren't aware there's more to black and white conversion than clicking on the "black and white" button in their software. I know it sounds paradoxical, but I spend at least as much and perhaps more time thinking about color when I do a black and white conversion, than I do if I leave a photo in color the way I shot it. Why? Because in the original photo, red is red, and green is green, and there's no mistaking them. In black and white, however, they may very well be mistaken, and I have to think hard to make sure that adjust the color channels in a way that best represents the contrasts and hues in the shot.

Why does black and white work? Because a photo is not a representation of reality as we really see it, at least not simply. The first fact about any photo is the frame, that is, the photo has a limit, a border, an edge beyond which you, the viewer, are not allowed to see. In reality, there is no limit, no border, no edge. Our peripheral vision is greater than the widest wide-angle lens. And if we want to see more, we simply turn our head a little. The frame of the photo restricts our attention to what is shown, what has been selected by the photographer for attention. In the same way, a black and white conversion, by eliminating color, forces us to view what remains—light, shade, form, texture, depth and focus. I think color photography, because it's more "realistic," tends also to be more prosaic. And black and white photography, when it's done well, because it is more formal and more disciplined, is more poetic.

You miss more than you hit (with a note on Oswald, Ruby, Beers and Jackson)

In baseball, a batting average of over .300 is considered pretty good. What's it mean? It means that, seven times out of every ten chances, you failed. And that's if you're good.

Now, consider that baseball is pretty easy, compared to photography. After all, in baseball, you know when you're at bat, and you know when the pitch is coming. As a photographer, I have no idea when I'm going to see my next photograph. This is true not just now as I sit at my computer and write, but it's true even when I'm working, even when I have the camera to my eye and I'm "at bat," so to speak, and ready to swing. I can miss photos because I don't have a camera, and I can miss photos because I clicked the shutter half a second too soon or too late. Taking candids of my nephew yesterday after Easter dinner, I missed a number of shots that I think would have been good, because Matthew is a year and a half old, constantly on the move, and not generally willing to hold a cute expression long enough for me to focus and react. I was shooting with flash, and I had to wait a second or two between shots for my batteries to recycle. Them's the breaks.

Who shot Oswald?

This truth—you miss more than you hit—applies even to famous photographers, perhaps especially to famous photographers. I'm reminded of it today by a post today at Mike Johnson's The Online Photographer blog. The post is actually a link to an article by Michael Granberry at the Dallas News. The article was written in 2004, but Mike Johnston thought of it today and decided to repost it. I recommend you read Granberry's article, and visit The Online Photographer, too, because Mike Johnston posts the photos.

Here's the gist. In November, 1963, on the day that President Kennedy's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was being transferred from one jail to another, ace photographers for Dallas's two daily newspapers were on the scene, expecting a routine photo-op. Both of them took dramatic photos of a totally unexpected event: the fatal shooting of Oswald by Dallas weirdo Jack Ruby. Here are the two photos.

Ruby shoots Oswald, by Jack Beers

Ruby shoots Oswald, by Robert Jackson

The first image above is Jack Beers' great photo. Beers was the photographer for the Dallas Morning News, and as Oswald was escorted into the garage, Beers was better positioned than his rival from the Dallas Times Herald, Bob Jackson. Beers saw Ruby running forward earlier and reacted faster. In so doing, he got a great shot, showing Ruby with his pistol aimed right at Oswald's heart, in the very act of pulling the trigger. I'm not sure but I think the image as shown here is pretty close to the full frame Beers captured, which is to say that he composed the shot really well.

The second shot above isn't framed as well: you can see the shoulder of someone standing in front of photographer Bob Jackson, who was there representing the Dallas Times Herald. Nevertheless, because he was slower to react, Jackson snapped his shutter at an even more "decisive moment", capturing Oswald's reaction as he is hit by the bullet, as well as the sheriff's surprise at the shooting.

Jackson's photo won the Pulitzer Prize that year. If Jackson's photo hadn't been taken, Beers surely would have won instead.

Them's the breaks.

I was aware of both photos but I had never read this back story and I'm grateful to Mike Johnston for bringing it to my attention. I urge you to read Granberry's entire account over at DallasNews.com, for more about the human angle, in particular.

The moral

The moral of the story is obvious but important. No matter how good you are, or how hard you try, you are going to miss many, many more photographs than you ever take.

I carry a camera with me almost everywhere I go. Yet I miss good photos constantly.

Sometimes I strike out swinging, that is, sometimes I have the camera to my eye and I'm looking in the right direction, but I click the shutter a split-second too early or too late, or even more painfully, I click the shutter at the right instant but the flash didn't fire, or the shot was focused incorrectly. It happens.

But often, I strike out looking, that is, I don't have a camera with me, or I just can't raise it to my eye fast enough. Last fall, while on a bike ride by the lake with my wife, I saw one of the most spectacular sunsets I've ever seen. Uncharacteristically I did not have a camera with me, and there was nothing I could do but stop and admire the remaining couple minutes of the sunset. Another miss that sticks in my mind, is the photo I did not take of a mountain lion crossing the road directly in front of my car. This happened a couple of years ago, at the top of Rocky Mountain National Park. My camera was in my lap, but I was too dumb-struck to grab it and shoot. My wife was with me and saw the mountain lion, too, so I know I didn't imagine it. Apparently we interrupted the mountain lion an instant after it had attacked an elk; we saw the cow elk, agitated and bloodied on the shoulder, running down the road as we continued on our way. We reported the sighting of both animals when we got to a ranger station. The ranger we spoke to had worked in the park for twenty years and never yet seen a mountain lion.

Fortunately, I forget most of my misses pretty quickly and don't lose sleep about them. You have to learn to live with it.