The camera is for us a tool, not a pretty mechanical toy ... people think far too much about techniques and not enough about seeing.
Henri Cartier-BressonRead
I believe that, through the act of living, the discovery of oneself is made concurrently with the discovery of the world around us.
Interpretation
Self-discovery and understanding of the world go hand in hand.
The quote by Henri Cartier-Bresson suggests that as we navigate through life and engage with the world around us, we also undergo a process of self-discovery. It implies that our experiences in life shape our understanding of ourselves, and conversely, our understanding of the world contributes to our personal growth.
In practice
During a graduation speech to emphasize the importance of personal growth.
The camera is for us a tool, not a pretty mechanical toy ... people think far too much about techniques and not enough about seeing.
The most difficult thing for me is a portrait. You have to try and put your camera between the skin of a person and his shirt.
Photography has not changed since its origin except in its technical aspects, which for me are not important.
Photographier: c'est mettre sur la meme ligne de mire la tete, l'oeil et le coeur.
Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes.
Pictures, regardless of how they are created and recreated, are intended to be looked at. This brings to the forefront not the technology of imaging, which of course is important, but rather what we might call the eyenology (seeing).
And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you I will show you fear in a handful of dust
This is a fundamental view of the world. It says that when you build a thing you cannot merely build that thing in isolation, but must repair the world around it, and within it, so that the larger world at that one place becomes more coherent, and more whole; and the thing which you make takes its place in the web of nature, as you make it.
Public behavior is merely private character writ large.
It is intolerable that in our country citizens should feel so upset and under assault because of their religious choice that they would conclude that they have to hide.
There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.
Resentment seems to have been given us by nature for a defense, and for a defense only! It is the safeguard of justice and the security of innocence.
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