Picto and Magnum Photos: 70 Years of Correspondences

Magnum Photos’ Gilles Peress in a conversation with Raymond Depardon offered an interpretation of this evolution of the print through history that could be applied to many other Magnum photographers: “When you look at Henri’s prints all through the years, you see an evolution between these “blond” prints of the fifties and the prints as of the years 1968-1970. As of that period, the prints have higher contrasts with another interpretation of light, and the question is, to know whether he [Henri-Cartier Bresson] is the one responsible, or if the times are. I think that in the fifties there was an interpretation of light and rendition that fulfilled another function, that of creating a certain harmony, a peace after the war, but that with the mounting of [societal] contradictions in the sixties, the tonality of prints not only of Henri’s, but of others too- undergoes a radical change.”