Henri Cartier-Bresson and Photojournalism

Henri Cartier-Bresson and Photojournalism 

            Aside from changing photography with the decisive moment and the golden ratio, Henri Cartier-Bresson was a humanist photographer. His street photography was intended to show people what was going on around in the world around them and evoke an emotional response. Even though that is the goal of most photographers, being a humanist photographer meant they wanted to show people what happened in places that they couldn’t see. Many would travel to different countries and show what was happening in smaller and poorer countries. It showed the extreme gap between the wealthy and those living in poverty.

            When journalism began, it was just text, there were no pictures. Then came the drawings, and those helped to illustrate things, but it was never really an in-the-moment type of image. With the addition of photography to journalism, photographers were able to capture live images of what was happening in the news and allowed those who might not be able to regularly see what happened a glimpse into the things going on. Instead of just reading about a tragic event, or hearing about it in neighborhood gossip, if the photojournalists were there, they were able to capture the tragedy on film for all to see and fully understand what happened. It made the reality of what was happening during WWI that much more real to the people who were at home waiting on those at the battle front to return. They were able to know the conditions that the soldiers, sometimes their loved ones, were facing over seas.