“The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box.”
Author details
Related authors
Other Henri Cartier-Bresson Quotes
The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box.
Henri Cartier-Bresson 
70% of people like this quote
To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
59% of people like this quote
The most difficult thing for me is a portrait. You have to try and put your camera between the skin of a person and his shirt.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
58% of people like this quote
Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
58% of people like this quote
The photograph itself doesn't interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
56% of people like this quote