Right time, right place

Henri Cartier-Bresson's
most famous photograph

1. One of the most familiar concepts in photography is “a decisive moment” in which you press the button at your chosen time to capture the moment you want. Henri Cartier-Bresson, the godfather of photojournalism, and his photographs was well known for using this concept. His most famous image of a man jumping over a puddle shows Cartier-Bresson's decisive moment to capture that specific moment in time. Taken a second later, is photo would look very different, and wouldn't be as successful.
   
   
2. War created the start of photojournalism, and was used to explain the reasons for the war. However, trusting a photograph is now seen as a huge mistake from the beginning. With the introduction and development of Photoshop, people are trusting photography less and less, as it is now much easier to manipulate images. Despite this, some people do still trust photography.
   
   
3. The Leica introduced in 1925 was revolutionary because it allowed photographers to to photos of movement, without any blur. This was very important for Henri Cartier-Bresson as some of his work contained movement, including his most famous image of a man jumping over a puddle.
   
   
4. People trust photos much more than any other art form. We use photographs in our passports and not paintings for this exact reason. George Bernard Shaw said that he would trade all paintings of Christ for one photograph of him, as photography is much more trustworthy.
   
   

5. 

   Tony Vaccaro war image

   Tony Vaccaro's was a soldier who photographed the war whilst on duty, as well as developing them wherever and whenever he could. However, before returning home from duty, his negatives were all destroyed by the army censors because they believed that the world wasn't ready to see the destruction and aftermath of war.
   
   
6. Henryk Ross was a Jew who was incarcerated in Woodge, a Nazi ghetto in Poland. He was incarcerated there with 164 000 Jews. He was one of the ghetto's official photographers, and as well as documenting the everyday life of the people who lived here, he also photographed the production of goods made here to make money for their captors.
   
   
7. “The Family of Man” is known as the world's most successful art exhibitions. With 500 images in the show, chosen from thousands of photographs, it acted as a public statement on behalf of humanity. There were five travelling versions, and was known as the “sticking plaster for the wounds of war”. By 1964, “The Family of Man” had already been viewed by 9million people. The “cliché” the show ends on is on W. Ugene Smith's optimistic image called “A walk through Paradise Garden” which shows his children walking through the darkness of the trees, into the light.
   
   

8. 

   Joel Meyerowitz-Ground Zero

   Joel Meyerowitz was one of very few photographers who had access to and was allowed to take photos of ground zero whilst the rubble was being cleared. He wanted to photograph this because it was it is a key aspect of history, and needed to be documented in order for it to be remembered like it is. Meyerowitz decided to photograph it in colour because “ to photograph it in black and white would be to keep it as a tragedy”.