Henri Cartier-Bresson, Martine's Legs, 1968
Henri Cartier-Bresson, In a Train, Romania, 1975
Last weekend I was in Bryant Park, after hitting up the newly hung Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibit at the MOMA. It was warm, full to the brim with people, people all sitting around in their metal chairs, staring into the bright green of the closed off lawn that is still seeding and is just waiting to be lied on. Old Italian men and their apprentices were playing a pick up game of Bocce and the metal balls glimmered in the bright daylight as they rolled to a stop in the dust. And the park was a world of long shadows as the sun sank behind the green canopy of trees and the tall surrounding city. I was thinking about Bresson's still moments. The moments he caught and preserved forever in black and white prints that are now hanging in a white room for passing people to stare at and question. Question the faces, their still laughter, their lives and what became of them. "It is through living we discover ourselves, at the same time as we discover the world around us" I had read on the wall that afternoon (Bresson, 1952). If I could have taken home any of the prints from the show In a train and Martine's Legs would go nicely together.
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