“It is through living that we discover ourselves, at the same time as we discover the world around us”
~ Henri Cartier-Bresson
(1908 - 2004)
I was very honored to have had a close collaboration with Henri and his equally amazing wife Martine Franck for the last 20 years of his life. He was and still is my Photo God all these years later.
Without doubt this was his most requested image during that time. An image that gave so much joy to so many people, it is not hard to understand why. That look of pride on the child’s face that he has managed to safely bring the large bottles of wine home without dropping them, dressed in his hand me down pants that are too large for him, and the little girl’s exuberant approval.
Over lunch one day I asked him more about it. He was always so surprised that it was so popular and that I was always requesting a print. It bemused him. He thought it was, in his words, "just a snap shot”. And then he told me this story that had happened to him several years before.
“I get this phone call out of the blue. The man on the phone, who I had never spoken to before says, “Monsieur Bresson, I would like to invite you to my 50th Birthday Party". I reply very politely “That’s very kind of you but who are you?”, and he nervously replies “The little boy in the picture you took in Rue Mouftard in 1954”. I was, as you say in England, 'chuffed' ( Henri had been brought up by an English nanny and spoke perfect English when he was relaxed). So I actually went to the party and brought with me a magnum of champagne to give him as a gift”
True story. The perfect coda to a perfect image.
