Henri Cartier-Bresson

Bresson is well known for his "Street Photography". Bresson was born on August 22nd in 1908 in Sein-et-Marne at Chanteloup. By 1923 he developed an interest in painting and certain parts of Surrealism where he studied under Andre' Lhote. In 1931 he started to really focus on photography. By 1935 Bresson was in New York experimenting with film with Paul Strand. Bresson as then working on a few shows until 1940 when he was taken prisoner by the Germans. He later escaped in1943 where he took pictures artists and writers and was a part of an organization called MNPGD which helped people who escaped or were at one time prisoners. After in 1944-1945 he was working as a part of a team called photographs the Liberation of Paris which was a documentary on on the prisoners of war and detainees. As his life goes on Bresson continues with his photography until 1974 where he starts to concentrate on his drawing. As the later years of his life are focused on his drawing art he dies peacefully on August 3rd 2004 in Montjustin, Provence

Someone who really understood what it is Henri Cartier-Bresson was doing in his art is
Zorkikat who wrote the qote below which just sums Street Photography up so nicely.
      "The common misconception is that street photography is so simple that there is no need to set rules for it. A lot of people with cameras (as opposed to true photographers :) ) think that the 'street' is the genre for them, after perhaps encountering failures and frustrations in other photographic genre like portraiture, still life, or even landscape where there seem to be a lot of "rules". The notion that the street is open, spontaneous, and non-static leads to the belief that the photography used in it should be as 'free' as well- no rules, no standards, and even no composition or graphic consideration!
"Finding one's voice" is difficult if that voice cannot speak in a manner that is comprehensible. Doing nothing but trial and error will lead to hits or misses- more misses likely. And of the hits, they can be best described as accidental: the creator had little to do with it, and thus he is unlikely to recreate the 'success' which his unintended hit had, if he had no grip on its method of creation in the first place."

Here are some of Bresson's work

Here are some links where I got my information:

http://erickimphotography.com/blog/2011/08/22/10-things-henri-cartier-bresson-can-teach-you-about-street-photography/

 http://www.henricartierbresson.org/hcb/HCB_bio08_28_en.htm