Henri Cartier-Bresson is the Zeus of street photography. He often spoke of the “decisive moment” as the culmination and alignment of time, space, and emotion producing photographic perfection. Several of the very accomplished photographers I went to school with would tell you Cartier-Bresson is the greatest photographer who has ever lived.

He’s regarded as a completely natural photographer—he was an accomplished artist at a young age—so it’s comforting to the rest of us he openly admitted that climbing the photographic ladder takes time, energy, and a willingness to recognize your mistakes. I suspect that if he had been blessed enough to get his hands on a modern digital camera he may have revised his worst photographs estimate to eight or nine thousand. —Nick Kelsh                                                                                             

Juvisy, France by Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1938

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