Beth's Everything Blog

Archive for January, 2012

HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON-PHOTOGRAPHER EXTRAORDINAIRE

In an effort to explain the art world we have tried to single out for the reader interesting artists throughout history. We have a small photograph done by Henri Cartier-Bresson which shows a fat French family picnicking at a race track. It is not one of his greatest works, but it forces us to look and to understand this family in a way that no other artist could have done. Henri Cartier-Bresson was one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century. He came from an affluent French family; Cartier-Bresson was headstrong and determined not to follow in his father’s footsteps, thus he determined that he was meant to be an artist. It was also natural then for him as a young man to be a communist as well as a surrealist and to busy himself in brothels. Gertrude Stein viewed his paintings and advised him to join the family business. In 1931 he began taking pictures in Africa where he acquired black waterfever and a Leica camera. He then gave himself over to his surrealist spirit recording odd events in the city streets of Marseilles. Cartier-Bresson says that he suddenly realized that “photography could reach eternity through the moment”. What really makes him a genius is that he approached photography recording timeless truth and immediacy which thrilled both the eye and the mind.

In 1937 he joined the staff of a communist daily newspaper and he was sent to cover the coronation of King George VI. His photographs did not record the pomp of the event; instead he turned his lens to the attending crowds.

He had joined the French army in 1939 and, captured by the Germans, he spent three years in prison camps before he escaped. During this time he proceeded to take magnificent portraits of the leading avant garde intellectuals of France in a new way. These silent duels with consenting adult persons generated the most beautiful and moving portraits in photographic history. After the war he made a film about the expatriation of liberated prisoners and displaced persons in Europe. One still from this film shows a female collaborator being denounced by a woman she had betrayed. It was a photograph that aroused ferocious anger in all who saw it, and it was this single photograph that brought him to New York where he became a co-founder of Magnum, a photographic agency headed by Robert Capa, a famous American photographer.

Cartier-Bresson began to photograph in a unique new way. He blackened the shiny portions of his camera and carried it around under his coat so that he simply photographed his subjects surreptitiously. It was his eye that determined what the viewer would see when the photographs were printed. However his lens was focused on the crowds rather than on the pomp. He was still a communist when LIFE magazine published his shots or workers, students, and soldiers involved in Mao’s Great Leap Forward in 1959. Cartier-Bresson from that time on travelled the world that brought him to China, to India, Russia, Mongolia, Indonesia, the middle east and Japan.

Then in 1975 he put down his Leica after a 45 year career behind the camera and never thought of himself as the founding father of photojournalism nor did he take any more photographs. “It doesn’t interest me.” he said.

And the question for us is just what makes him great? What allowed him to photograph with such perfection? What he photographed was of less importance than where he placed himself to photograph it. His shutter click climaxed an artful scurry for the perfect point of view. Cartier-Bresson took photographs that aligned him with the head, the eye, and the heart of his subjects. He understood people, children, old ladies and what moments are significant in human beings. He was able to do this because he was intelligent, educated, and possessed of an understanding of history. Moreover he had an innate sense of what was going on in the world and he was there when great earth shaking things happened. It is still thrilling today to “meet up with his work.”

Talk about courage: President Obama showed the nation he  has plenty of it when he rejected the application of TransCanada to build a pipeline right through the middle of the United States.

He knew the GOP would howl. He understood the oil companies  like B.P. would cry foul and threaten huge political fall-out (remember it was due to poor regulations that B.P. was allowed to build a slapdash well in the gulf.)

GOP candidate Mitt Romney  said, “It shows a President who once again has put politics ahead of sound policy,” Really? How about instead it showed a President who puts the welfare of the people ahead of politics.

My bet is that the folks in Montana are grateful for President Obama’s courage. Last year, one of the Keystone Exxon/Mobile pipelines broke under the Yellowstone River spilling 40,000 gallons into the water before it could be sealed. (See Discovery Magazine’s Jan/Feb 2012 article) By June of 2011, the first Keystone Pipeline, only a year old, had sprung 12 leaks spilling 2100 gallons of icky crude in my home state of Kansas, and in North Dakota, a Keystone Pipeline fitting broke spewing  a 60 foot geyser of 21,000 gallons of crude oil into the air.

Don’t forget that the proposed pipeline would go right over the Ogallala Aquifer, the shallow underground  water reserve upon which eight states from South Dakota to Texas depend to irrigate their crops.

What convinced President Obama to take this gutsy action? It happened because naturalists have organized, 350.org worked hard and is becoming better known, the Sierra Clubs are doing their job and because thousands of people like you and me stood up said, “Mr. President, You can do this. We’ve got your back.”

Tom, our oldest, is a Trecky. Some years ago he and his little girl Jami would sit on their deck at night in Stilwell Kansas and wait and watch for the extra-terrestrials to come get them and carry them away. In those days, our countrymen were quite literally walking on the moon. Space travel was at the top of  Tom’s ‘to do’ list.

Then, in 2005, President George W. Bush signed a presidential decree canceling the space shuttle program saying he couldn’t find any justification for funding a program that had no application.

Looks like China doesn’t agree with that. Their space program, run by the well funded military, has a ten year plan that includes opening a space station on the moon in 2020. Also, Russia is discussing a mission to Mars and even India is planning a manned space flight in 2016.

President Obama talks about sending astronauts to an asteroid, and from there, on to Mars. Tom would like to go on that venture but the soonest will be 2025. President Obama has tried to increase funding for the  Commercial Crew Development Project, a NASA program which hopes to stimulate efforts in the private sector for safe, cost effective space transportation capabilities. Even though it meets Republican criteria for private enterprise, a coalition from both parties has blocked the plan. NASA will go before congress to try again in February.

Meanwhile, astrophysicists are engaged in breathtaking studies of the universe using satellites and powerful telescopes that travel through space. Looking past our own Milky Way Galaxy, many other galaxies have been found with black holes much bigger than ours. (Not enough space to discuss black holes here, but scientists say there is no chance earth will fall into one.)

However, NASA scientists and astrophysicists the world over are searching for planets in our galaxy. These explorers estimate there are 50 billion planets in the Milky Way Galaxy.  Many of them, perhaps 500,000 million are in a climate zone which may support life. In our tiny portion of the Milky Way, there may even be a planet or two, perhaps more, with intelligent life.

If we don’t want to lose our place as the leader of space exploration, we better think seriously about funding it, either through private industry or government or both.

As for Tom’s dreams, he still wants to travel in space. Maybe that will happen  sooner than he thinks.

Tip: Steer clear of web sites containing information supplied by the Chinese. There may be mischievous people  lurking out there who will merrily put viruses on your computer that completely wipe out your hard drive.

Only eight days into the new year, and already we are knee deep in the politics of choosing the next president. It’s a dirty business, full of partial truths, innuendos, and out and out lies. My stomach turns over when I read the vitriolic comments on the internet. It seems few can have reasonable discussions without name calling, even the so-called intellectuals. Very tiresome. Worse still, it’s only the beginning. Somehow we must slog through the muck until November.

At least we can be grateful that the Iowa caucuses are over. In a state of some 3,000,000 people, 91 % of whom are Caucasian, less than 150,000 or maybe 4 % of the population voted, 25% for Mitt and 25% for Rick, who is, politically speaking,  far right of the far right.

And speaking of Iowa, did you read that some farmers are selling their Iowa farmland for as high as $13,000 an acre? Iowa farmers are the state’s new millionaires because corn and soybean prices have gone through the roof. A farmland  bubble or will it last?

Just to start you thinking, here are a few things that have happened under President Obama administration: *Energy producing plants must begin preparing to produce 15% of their energy from renewable sources, *Vaccination programs have been expanded, *We now have a State Children’s Health Insurance Program that covers health care for 4 million more children,  and *Federal support for stem-cell and new biomedical research.

On my new Wildlife calendar this year is a picture of a polar bear with her young cub who’s chances of survival are less than 40% and decreasing because the arctic ice is melting faster each year. Polar bears do not hibernate like brown bears so they are forced to swim longer and longer distances to find food.

One last thought. As I write this, the outdoor temperature is 60 degrees. Louie and I jumped at the chance to take advantage of the strange but great walking weather. The park was full of little people. Louie loves those children and you could almost see him smile as he sat patiently letting their tiny, little fingers poke and pet him.