THE TWINKLE IN THE EYE, OR MY LUNCH WITH HENRI

摘要

My "decisive moment" came in 1989 when I decided to change my life. I had worked for 20 years in a field that I had finally realized I probably wasn't suited for. When I first arrived in the U.S. from England in 1979, I had, by accident or fate, become a minor collector of photographs. The market was still in its infancy and it was possible to obtain great images for relatively small sums of money. The content of my cherished box of 20 photographs became the inventory of my "gallery," located in the rear of my apartment. Included in the box was a print of Srinigar, 1948, by Henri Cartier-Bresson. The image of the praying women in northern India had always moved me, as had the entire body of work by this remarkable photographer. The more photographs I looked at, the more I realized that there were good photographers, even great photographers, but that this man truly was in a class of his own. I constantly revisited his boob, The Europeans, The People of Moscow, The Face of Asia, The World of Henri Cartier-Bresson, and of course, The Decisive Moment, the touchstone of all photography books. I always discovered something new and fresh.