Taking too many pictures

Throw

 Sigh..

Marie: Too many photos.

Maurice: Take fewer. Wait for the decisive moment, then snap. That’s what Henri Cartier-Bresson did.

Marie: I might miss the moment.

Maurice: Then bracket the shots. Three: one before, one during, one after.

Keep

Marie: And I can never find the one I want.

Maurice: Workflow. End of every day delete the duds. Ruthlessly. Throw 90% and keep 10%. Then date them and put them in folders organized by subject.

_________

Voice-over

Cartier-Bresson eventually gave up photography and took up sketching. He drew the decisive moment. Quantity fell and quality rose.

Vivian Maier, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Street Photography

Vivian discute la photographie de rue avec Henri...

Vivian: You must lift the Leica to take a picture. It draws attention to you.

Henri: And you use a Rolleiflex. Pourquois?

Vivian: I can look down into the viewfinder, the subject is not threatened, sometimes they don’t even know I am taking their photo.

Henri: I see the picture forming through my eye. You see it through your lens.

Vivian: We both have to choose the moment.

Henri: Oui. The decisive moment.

_____________

Voice-over

“She could go into a space with a total stranger, get them to accommodate her by being themselves and generate this moment where two presences were kind of vibrating together …  and then she’s gone.”

Finding Vivian Maier (2014)

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