> The URL below is a pictorial review. The article is > here:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/arts/design/09cartier.html
The lead photo on that article is the first photograph I ever saw where I wanted to know the photographer's name, and it's the way I first came to know of Cartier-Bresson. I remember seeing it when it first appeared in the London Sunday Times and it was a real revelation to me about what a photograph could be. I'd have been 15 years old at the time. Remembering that we were still in the Cold War with no end in sight. I had never heard of Soviet Georgia. The picture showed me somewhere that appeared to be at odds with my image of the Soviet Union. In the picture Georgia looks like a fairy-tale, with the weird church in the background like a mediaeval space rocket isolated in an otherwise empty landscape, the family like something from Grimm. Their pose, looking out of the frame, is full of mystery but their lives look simple and not bad in the way we were led to expect of the USSR at that time. The entire composition is a masterpiece, with the car and its open door leading into the frame and serving like some sort of gateway from the modern world into a timeless past - I always get the sense that the family has been interrupted by visitors from the future, or they're staring out at us looking in at them. It's a very inviting landscape - ever since seeing the picture I've wanted to go there, and Georgia is towards the top of my list of places for a long (ie several weeks) visit. It's always felt equally mysterious to me how a photographer came to be standing there at that time. It's a wonderful picture - it works like poetry in the way it sets my imagination in motion. Bob > On Apr 9, 2010, at 9:00 PM, paul stenquist wrote: > > > Had a chance to read the Times essay about HCB and the > upcoming show at MOMA. I found it excellent. It's on the web: > > > http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/cartier-bressons-modern-centu > > ry-at-moma/?scp=1&sq=Bresson%20&st=cse > > > > Paul -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
