MAGNUM: THE CONTRASTING WORK OF HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON AND ROBERT CAPA

BY LYNN HILDITCH LRPS

During the last 60 years, Magnum photographers have been present at the forefront of the world’s most defining and decisive moments in twentieth-century history. Bearing witness to images of conflict, famine, poverty, and political unrest, and documenting the tragedies, triumphs and follies of mankind, they created some of the century’s most memorable still images. Like all photographers, the Magnum photographers capture an image in a split second, an image no other human being could possibly have witnessed because it happened so fast, giving that image a place in eternity. History is captured in the blink of an eye, or a camera lens. Indeed, as Eamon McCabe points out, “The new criterion for an image is not how good it is, but how quick it is”.

Cartier-Bresson Portait

Capa Portrait

Magnum was the brainchild of Hungarian-born photographer Robert Capa who dreamt of establishing a co-operative photo agency that would be uniquely controlled by its own members. In an agency like this, photographers would have complete control over the publication of their own work without having to surrender their photographs to whichever publication or editor chose to use them. Therefore, the Magnum photographers would be free to travel the globe on their own chosen photo assignments without being forced to abide to any conventions or directives. Magnum was set up during the spring of 1947 during lunch at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The exact date is unknown as is the origins of the agency's name but it is probably due to the fact that the party was consuming champagne at the time. Besides Capa, the other founders included Frenchman Henri Cartier-Bresson, Pole David Seymour also known as “Chim”, Englishman George Rodger, American husband and wife team Bob and Rita Vandivert, and the French woman Maria Eisner who had been the founder of Alliance Photos in Paris before the war. Each of the photographers were allocated territory around the world to photograph, areas which George Rodger described as their “personal hunting ground”. Their objective was, as John Morris, picture editor of Life magazine, described, “to bring back alive, from the jungle of world events, photographic images bearing credible witness to the incredible daily life of mankind”.

Robert Capa, Omaha Beach, D-Day (1944)

It had not been easy for Capa to persuade Cartier-Bresson to join Magnum because they were both completely different types of photographer. Cartier-Bresson looked for visual coherence within fragmentary instants, what he called “the organic co-ordination of elements seen by the eye”, while Capa believed that “the truth is the best picture, the best propaganda”. His theory was “If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough”. During the 1930s and 40s, the public relied upon photographers and picture magazines in order to keep up with what was happening elsewhere in the world, especially during the Second World War. Magazines, such as the British Picture Post and the American Life magazine employed the best photographers to go to the forefront of the historical events in order to record the images for the people at home. Unfortunately, censorship meant that much of the reality was replaced by a misconceived, morale boosting image--that was until Robert Capa was given permission during the early 40s to publish his photographs of dead ally soldiers.

Capa was considered by his peers to be “the greatest war photographer in the world”, although he was also a highly controversial photographer. One of his most compelling and controversial images, “Death of a Republican Soldier”, was taken while he was covering the Spanish Civil War in 1936. The photograph depicting a soldier, arms outflung and falling backwards after being fatally shot by the enemy, appeared in both Vu and Life magazines but has often been considered to be a fake. This "moment of death" shot is often thought to be so perfect and so decisive that it was just too perfect and therefore must have been posed. It is also impossible, according to some critics, for Capa to have been situated where he was in order to take the photograph. Some of Capa's greatest images were taken on Omaha Beach, Normany, on 6 June 1944 - D-Day. These images, incidentally, were used as the inspiration for the cinematography in Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning film Saving Private Ryan (1998).

Robert Capa, Death of a Republican Soldier (1936)

Three of Magnum best war photographers died on assignments - Capa died covering the war in Indochina in May 1954, within days of his colleague Werner Bischof who died when his truck careered of a mountain road in Peru. Chim was also killed covering the conflicts in Egypt in 1956.

In contrast to Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson was very much the art photographer. A master of intuitive and spontaneous shooting, Cartier-Bresson believed that what was seen in that decisive moment was the essence of photography. He described the camera as an extension of the eye, and his eye was constantly on the look out for the split-second photo. He wrote in his book entitled The Decisive Moment in 1952:

Sometimes it happens that you stall, delay, wait for something to happen. Sometimes you have the feeling that here are all the makings of a picture - except for just one thing that seems to be missing. But what one thing? Perhaps someone suddenly walks into your range of view. You follow his progress through the viewfinder. You wait and wait, and then finally you press the button - and you depart with the feeling (though you don't know why) that you've really got something.

Henri Cartier Bresson, Hyeres (1932)

The Decisive Moment was one of the most inspirational works that looked at photography as an art form as well as a form of documentation. Cartier-Bresson's fleeting images of a busy world are the result of both genius and luck. Photographing a man running across a street on a rainy day, with his reflection in a puddle of water while he is still in the air, is for him the art of photography at its purest. His love of surrealism is present in many of his photographs due to his artistic background--he actually trained as a surrealist painter in Paris before turning to photography. Photographs to him were just “instant drawings”. Part of his technique was invisibility, photographing people who believe they are unobserved, oblivious to the fact that a Frenchman with a Leica camera has just captured part of their life on film. Technically, he never cropped or modified his negative when making a print, believing that to change the original image would be a violation of his work.

As fellow Magnum photographer, Eve Arnold points out, Henri Cartier-Bresson was very much the poet with the camera; Robert Capa, the journalist with the camera.

Recommended Sources:

Magnum Website www.magnumphotos.com
Russell Miller, Magnum: Fifty Years at the Front Line of History
Robert Whelan, Robert Capa: A Biography
Robert Capa, Slightly Out of Focus
Henri Cartier-Bresson, Tete e Tete

Please send any comments to Lynn