The camera is for us a tool, not a pretty mechanical toy ... people think far too much about techniques and not enough about seeing.
Henri Cartier-BressonRead
There is no closed figure in nature. Every shape participates with another. No one thing is independent of another, and one thing rhymes with another, and light gives them shape.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the interconnection of all things in nature, emphasizing that nothing exists in isolation.
Henri Cartier-Bresson's quote highlights the idea that in nature, all shapes and forms are interconnected and influence one another. This interconnectedness suggests that nothing is truly independent; every element of nature is linked in harmony, creating a beautiful symphony where light plays a crucial role in defining and shaping these relationships.
In practice
In a speech about environmental conservation, I would quote this to illustrate the importance of preserving ecosystems.
The camera is for us a tool, not a pretty mechanical toy ... people think far too much about techniques and not enough about seeing.
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.
Photography has not changed since its origin except in its technical aspects, which for me are not important.
Photographier: c'est mettre sur la meme ligne de mire la tete, l'oeil et le coeur.
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.
Pictures, regardless of how they are created and recreated, are intended to be looked at. This brings to the forefront not the technology of imaging, which of course is important, but rather what we might call the eyenology (seeing).
When I first ventured into the Gulf of Mexico in the 1950s, the sea appeared to be a blue infinity too large, too wild to be harmed by anything that people could do.
The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.
I have tried to keep my eco-anxiety at bay, to box it into my working life. But every month this becomes more difficult. The rising sense of panic I feel is entirely rational; we should all be feeling it. But we can't live with it through every hour of every day.
Far away beyond the pine-woods,' he answered, in a low dreamy voice, 'there is a little garden. There the grass grows long and deep, there are the great white stars of the hemlock flower, there the nightingale sings all night long. All night long he sings, and the cold, crystal moon looks down, and the yew-tree spreads out its giant arms over the sleepers.
Sleep, rest of nature, O sleep, most gentle of the divinities, peace of the soul, thou at whose presence care disappears, who soothest hearts wearied with daily employments, and makest them strong again for labour!
I refuse to condemn your generation and future generations to a planet that's beyond fixing.
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