Photograph is nothing; The Life in it; That Interests me.

Henri Cartier-Bresson attended the Ecole Fenelon and the Lycee Condorcet in Paris before studying painting under Cotent from 1927 to 1928, both in Paris. After that, he completed his studies of painting and philosophy at Cambridge University. His career as a photographer began in 1931. After participating in an ethnographic expedition to Mexico, he began working as a freelance photographer. In 1932, gallery owner Julien Levy hosted his first solo exhibition. In 1935 he learned about motion picture photography from Paul Strand. After that he worked as a camera assistant for Jacques Becker and Andre Zvoboda and also for Jean Renoir. In 1937 he made documentary films in Spain, and 1940 he become a prisoner of war of the Germans in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg.

After escaping in 1943, he joined the MNPGD, a French underground resistance movement. After 1945 he once again turned to freelance photography. He authored many books illustrated with his photographs, among them The Decisive Moment, Changing China and The World of Henri Cartier-Bresson. In 1970 he married the photographer Martine Franck.

Cartier-Bresson is a living legend. Hardly any other photographer has been cited so often as exemplary of one of the great capabilities of photography: capturing a moment. In Cartier-Bresson's view, it is not just a moment, as it is in 99% of the millions of pictures made everyday, for him it is "le moment decisif", the decisive moment that expresses the essence of a situation.

This photographer worked for nearly all the great international newspapers and magazines of the world. Together with Robert Capa, David "Chim" Seymour and George Rodger, he founded the "Magnum" group, and his travels took him to India, Burma, Pakistan, China, Indonesia, Cuba, Mexico, Canada, Japan and the former USSR.