DB week 11: Kertesz and Cartier-Bresson versus Smith and Salgado

Andre Kertesz and Henri Cartier-Bresson had very artistic approaches to their photos. Although they weren’t, they looked almost staged because of how and what they photographed.

Eugene Smith and Sebastiao Salgado didn’t focus as much on th artistic side of photographs. They wanted their pictures to evoke the same emotions in people viewing the pictures as theypeople being photoraphed had.

Andre Kertesz

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Eugene Smith

Sebastiao Salgado

Differences: The key differences in the two pairs of photographers is listed above. Although all four photographers were photojournalists, the two pair had very different approaches, one pair was more into the artsy side of photojournalism, doing what they could to make them look great without any editing, while the other pair was emotion driven and just into showing what was going on in the world.

Similarities: All of these photographers are photojournalists and take real pictures. They also all shot their photos in black and white.

I believe Smith’s and Salgado’s way of taking pictures is a better approach to photojournalism, because their photos are ‘real’. Smith photographed WWII and Salgado shot pictures for UNICEF, both of them showing the world what hardships other people had to suffer through. By saying this, I’m not saying that Andre’s and Henri’s photos weren’t real, but they didn’t show the world things that it needed to be shown, they took pictures of weird objects, nudes (which were considered pornographic by some!) and scenic landscapes. These photos may have evoked emotions in some people, but not the same type of emotions that Smith’s and Salgado’s would have/do. Smith and Salgado aren’t focusing on how they could make the current events they were photographing look more artistic, they were focusing on capturing the event as it was.