29 Kutipan Fotografi dari Henri Cartier-Bresson

Sama seperti musik dan film, ada beragam genre dalam fotografi. Landscape, macro, portrait, wedding, human interest, underwater, pinhole, nude, dan masih banyak lainnya. Nah, gara-gara sering nonton saluran DigitalRev TV, saya jadi tertarik untuk mendalami genre street photography. Sama nude juga tertarik sih, tapi takutnya nanti malah menjerusnya pornografi bukan fotografi. Pfft~

Henri Cartier-Bresson! Jika ngomongin street photography maka nama fotografer satu ini pasti bakal sering didengar. Ya, karena beliau lah yang mengembangkan apa yang kemudian disebut “fotografi jalanan”, yang memadukan elemen-elemen fotojurnalisme, foto-dokumentasi, dan pendekatan artistik lainnya.

22 Agustus. 106 tahun yang lalu, “father of street photography” ini lahir ke dunia, tepatnya di Chanteloup-en-Brie, Seine-et-Marne, Perancis. Dan sebagai penghormatan kepada beliau, maka saya akan membagi beberapa kutipan-kutipannya soal fotografi dengan tambahan hasil jepretannya.

1. Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.

10.000 jepretan foto pertama kita adalah yang terburuk. Jadi teruslah memotret pakai mode burst.

2. It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera… they are made with the eye, heart and head.

Foto bukan dibuat dengan kamera. Foto itu dibuat dengan mata, hati dan kepala. Tapi tanpa kamera ga bakalan ada foto sih.

3. To photograph: it is to put on the same line of sight the head, the eye and the heart.

Memfoto itu adalah menyejajarkan antara kepala, mata dan hati. Kameranya juga harus sejajar dengan obyek yang mau kita foto.

4. A photograph is neither taken or seized by force. It offers itself up. It is the photo that takes you. One must not take photos.

Foto yang akan mendatangi kita. Tapi sama seperti jodoh, kalau ga dicari tetap aja kita jadi jomblo.

5. Of all the means of expression, photography is the only one that fixes a precise moment in time.

Ya, foto itu media ekspresi untuk mengabadikan suatu momen berharga.

6. The picture is good or not from the moment it was caught in the camera.

Baik buruknya sebuah foto tergantung pada momen yang tertangkap kamera. Bukan soal kameranya.

7. The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box.

Percepat proses berpikir kreatif kita, soalnya proses untuk menjepret itu yang lama.

8. To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event.

Dalam sepersekian detik, suatu peristiwa penting bisa terjadi. Jadi fotografi itu soal kesimultanan.

9. Photography is, for me, a spontaneous impulse coming from an ever attentive eye which captures the moment and its eternity.

Fotografi adalah dorongan spontan mata untuk mengabadikan suatu momen.

10. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera.

Mata kita harus bisa melihat komposisi maupun ekspresi, dan percaya pada intuisi ketika menjepret.

 11. For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity.

Kamera adalah buku gambar, dan perkakasnya adalah intuisi serta spontanitas.

12. Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes.

Satu foto harus bisa mendeskripsikan seluruh esensi dari momen yang kita tangkap.

13. Memory is very important, the memory of each photo taken, flowing at the same speed as the event. During the work, you have to be sure that you haven’t left any holes, that you’ve captured everything, because afterwards it will be too late.

Jepret ini itu sebelum terlambat.

14. Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.

Penyesalan selalu datang di akhir.

15. This recognition, in real life, of a rhythm of surfaces, lines, and values is for me the essence of photography; composition should be a constant of preoccupation, being a simultaneous coalition – an organic coordination of visual elements.

Komposisi. Elemen penting dari fotografi.

16. Reality offers us such wealth that we must cut some of it out on the spot, simplify. The question is, do we always cut out what we should?

Realitas menawarkan kita sesuatu yang banyak, dan tugas kita lah memotong dan menyederhanakan dalam sebuah foto.

17. While we’re working, we must be conscious of what we’re doing.

Kalau lagi kerja, jangan sambil mabuk.

18. We must avoid however, snapping away, shooting quickly and without thought, overloading ourselves with unnecessary images that clutter our memory and diminish the clarity of the whole.

Jangan asal jepret!

19. A photographer must always work with the greatest respect for his subject and in terms of his own point of view.

Jadi fotografer itu jangan songong.

20. In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little, human detail can become a Leitmotiv.

Dalam fotografi, hal terkecil bisa jadi subyek yang besar.

21. The most difficult thing for me is a portrait. You have to try and put your camera between the skin of a person and his shirt.

Yang paling sulit itu fotografi portrait. Kamu harus berusaha meletakan kameramu antara kulit subyek fotomu dan pakaiannya.

22. As time passes by and you look at portraits, the people come back to you like a silent echo. A photograph is a vestige of a face, a face in transit. Photography has something to do with death. It’s a trace.

Jangan foto portrait kalau ga mau si subyek menghantui kita.

23. As far as I am concerned, taking photographs is a means of understanding which cannot be separated from other means of visual expression. It is a way of shouting, of freeing oneself, not of proving or asserting one’s own originality. It is a way of life.

Fotografi bukan soal gaya-gayaan semata, tapi ini jalan hidup.

24. Thinking should be done before and after, not during photographing.

Berpikir harus dilakukan sebelum dan sesudahnya, bukan saat menjepret.

25. Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation.

Fotografi adalah reaksi langsung, menggambar adalah meditasi.

26. The intensive use of photographs by mass media lays ever fresh responsibilities upon the photographer. We have to acknowledge the existence of a chasm between the economic needs of our consumer society and the requirements of those who bear witness to this epoch. This affects us all, particularly the younger generations of photographers. We must take greater care than ever not to allow ourselves to be separated from the real world and from humanity.

Jangan asal jepret demi uang semata.

27. I believe that, through the act of living, the discovery of oneself is made concurrently with the discovery of the world around us.

Dengan menjelajahi satu orang kita bisa menjelajahi seluruh dunia.

28. You just have to live and life will give you pictures.

Kamu hanya harus hidup, dan kehidupan akan memberimu gambar.

29. Of course it’s all luck.

Semuanya hanya tentang keberuntungan.

*

HCB merupakan pengguna Leica, sehingga biasanya streetog menjadikan ‘Lamborghini-nya kamera’ ini sebagai barang keramat untuk melakukan fotografi jalanan. Tapi untuk mengabadikan jalanan ga perlu punya kamera rangefinder super mahal ini, karena kamera terbaik ya kamera yang sedang kita pegang saat di jalan.

Referensi:

• John Paul Caponigro – Illuminating Creativity: 29 Quotes By Photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson
• Magnum Photos: Henri Cartier-Bresson
• Eric Kim: 10 Things Henri Cartier-Bresson Can Teach You About Street Photography