Henri Cartier-Bresson

by Kirsty Grant, independent curator and writer

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With right hands raised high above tilted heads, and bodies leaning in the same direction, the subjects of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photograph are like dancers performing a carefully choreographed routine. They are connected by a swathe of patterned fabric, which drapes and swirls around them, a clue that they are in fact not dancers, but women at work, rolling vast lengths of sari fabric which, as we see in the background, have been laid out in the sun to dry.

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Cartier-Bresson typically composed his images in the camera’s viewfinder, rather than cropping or otherwise manipulating them in the darkroom. A master of street photography, he would find an interesting subject and wait for what he described as the ‘decisive moment’ to occur, when the formal compositional elements and action of the scene coalesced, creating an image that was both meaningful in terms of content, as well as visually compelling.

 

Capturing the synchronised, rhythmic movement of these women, this photograph speaks to their practiced skill, honed over time by generations of workers in Ahmedabad, an important centre of textile production in India since the nineteenth century.