Encyclopedia of Nineteenth‐Century Photography

Henri Cartier‐Bresson wrote in 1951 that “to me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression” and as one of the greatest photographers of the twentieth century, he should know. Rather more amusingly and more recently, Tony Benn is quoted in The Independent as stating that “most things in life are moments of pleasure and a lifetime of embarrassment; photography is a moment of embarrassment and a lifetime of pleasure” and he should know, too!...