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Cardinal Pacelli, Montmartre, Paris

1938
Henri Cartier-Bresson (French, 1908–2004)
For Cartier-Bresson, the 35mm Leica camera was absolutely essential to his practice, and once he discovered it he never used another format. He seized upon its immediacy and its unique connection to the human body. One of the first cameras designed to be pressed up to the eye to compose the picture and oriented horizontally to replicate human sight, the 35mm camera differed greatly from other handhelds that took pictures from chest or waist level. For Cartier-Bresson the Leica became a natural extension of ocular vision that had the ability to mimic the way one sees and experiences the world.

Object Details

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