The Decisive Moment, by Henri Cartier Bresson

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Why?

"Bresson pioneered the genre of street photography." 
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- George Lois, Art Director

"Quite enthralled with it."
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- John Loengard, Photographer

"By studying the images in this book, I learned so much about framing and composition while clicking the shutter at precisely the right time. This book has always inspired me to make photographs that remain timeless."
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- Pete Souza, Photographer

"I guess this is where it all began for me, with Cartier-Bresson. The photographs in the book, and the way they are reproduced, everything is perfect. Including the mesmerizing cover by Matisse..."
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- Pauline Veramre, Curator

"The idea was a really big thing, this kind of minimalist approach, and you just catch, you shoot, it's kind of like you're hunting and you take the perfect humane shot, and you hit it right in the heart and you get it. This is street photography and that was kinda what I gravitated to."
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- Kevin Kelly, Co-founder of Wired

"This book reinforced the idea that the streets are an abundant and astonishingly surprising place to be. Out of ordinary, everyday life, beauty and significance can be found."
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- Joel Meyerowitz, Photographer

The Decisive Moment is about rhythm, about being in sync. It’s also about an element of discipline.”
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- Bruce Davidson, Photographer

“The Matisse cover reveals something about Bresson's images, providing context about the world he inhabited, and the place from which his photographs came from.”
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- Hannah Reyes Morales, Photographer

“Bresson, while not grippingly interested in alienation or any of the tough stuff, was deeply interested and exquisitely gifted in the timber of spacial organization. The organization of forms and shapes in a precise moment. And his kind of classicism was the thing that rooted my early work, even though my work now doesn't look anything like that.”
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- Larry Fink, Photographer


Passage: A Work Record, by Irving Penn

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Why?

"Penn (called Penn, without his first name by all who knew him) proved to be a meticulous artist since his first Vogue cover in 1943. His work influenced my advertising career, and as a designer of Esquire covers (1962-1972)." 
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- George Lois, Art Director


In and Out of Fashion, by Viviane Sassen

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Why?

"For me, it was her use of colour and composition in relation to fashion imagery and inspires in the sense to play with colour, shape, composition and perspective within my own works." 
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- Nadine Ijewere, Photographer