Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French Photographer, he is considered to be the father of Photojournalism and one of the masters of Candid Photography. His work involved capturing “everyday” things in his photographs along with human activity. Perhaps to embrace and appreciate the things in life that the rest of us take for granted.

A book he made, “Decisive Moment”, which was originally named “Images à la Sauvette”, contains some of his best images of “everyday” life. In the book, he wrote:

“For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. In order to ‘give a meaning’ to the world, one has to feel involved in what one frames through the viewfinder. This attitude requires concentration, discipline of mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry. It is by economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression.”

This book was or is considered one of the most important photobooks of the 20th century. Robert Capa has described it as “A bible for photographers”.

This is a photo that is in his book:

The Technical aspects of this photo involve the lighting. The lighting of the photo is very neutral as it has both dark areas and bright areas, combining the two create a neutrally balanced lighting level.

Some Visual elements are the texture that is seen in the grain of the image, the grain is the faint static you see all over the image. This is due to the old camera or old printout. You can see repetition in the gate’s bars, one after the other and even the whole image has been repeated in the puddle’s reflection.

A Conceptual element is what happened to this place and why the man is in the middle of the puddle trying to jump out. I think that the rubble seen in the background and some in the puddle suggests that perhaps there was a building where this man is now, and maybe it was destroyed in a rainstorm judging by the big puddle. The man seen in the background behind the bars is watching the man jump, he may have just been a person that was walking past and stopped to see what was happening next to him. Or maybe he knows the jumper and is waiting for him to get out.