Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Decisive Moment

Great book for every photographer. My favorite photographer from the past. His eye was ahead of the time.

Look, it's smaller than the original printing. Anyone who knows how to read product descriptions knows this, so it shouldn't be a surprise.But the quality is amazing. It's hardback, no annoying dust jacket, and the paper and prints are superb. There is less white space than you may be used to, but unless you have a LOT more money to purchase an OOP version of these photos, you will not have this book otherwise. When the option to pre-order came up, I checked the specs and ordered it immediately. And I have no regrets!I will say that if you need a bigger book, PHOTOGRAPHER (published by Prestel) is outstanding. It's nearly 350 pages and the images are massive. It's my fav. book on HCB's work, and it's less than $50 right now on Amazon US.THIS IS A GREAT PRINTING, THOUGH. If it's between getting a smaller version of an OOP book and not getting an option to own at all, well, that's an easy choice.

I just opened this book from the plastic for the first time and there are a bunch of damaged pages in the middle. This can’t have happened in shipping as the outward appearance of the book in its factory sealed plastic was perfect. I am beyond any sort return window so this is a real shame that a book this expensive came so damaged.

Henri Cartier-Bresson was known for using what he called "geometry" when it came to composing an image. The way some of his horizontal images are displayed across 2 pages completely destroys that geometry. You really have to crack that spine to see the image in full with bits still missing in the center gap. Not a very practical way to look at a book. Other images are cramped together with only the verticals given some room due the layout. It's really disappointing. The publisher's decision to make the book "in a smaller and practical format, at an affordable price" is just not true. It is less practical as a monograph as I pointed out, and as it cost me $53.00 it wasn't "affordable". It cost me just as much as other popular monographs that offer a more traditional, larger size book because it's photography. Next edition, please bring back the normal size book please.

For its price it should have been original size and better quality. Other publishers have produced better reprints than this.I preordered this book as an international order before there were any reviews were available. The package came today and I was shocked at the size of the box, I thought the wrong item had been delivered.I have seen the original book at an exhibition. This edition is small, pages can't lie flat and the images are cramped. It doesn't do justice to HCB at all. I don't think he would approved of his work being presented this way considering how much effort went into the original.I guess the publishers didn't want to upset owners of the full size out of print editions. This edition is I guess ok for a classroom but not for a collection. The image size and paper quality is nothing special.I recently bought Paris by Robert Doisneau from Taschen and at $60 and full size it's a much better publication. This Decisive Moment edition is overpriced for what it is. Publisher could have done a better job.

The original edition of Cartier-Bresson's book was far larger than this one; this needs to be acknowledged. If a potential reader is severely off-put by some of the photographs being reproduced across two pages, this edition is probably not for you. The same if a potential reader is off-put by the smaller scale.What I appreciate about this edition is being able to see/study in many, many examples, Cartier-Bresson's use of composition, especially, but also his use of depth-of-field and shutter speed. It makes for a wonderful companion to Aperture's Cartier-Bresson anthology, The Mind's Eye, Writings on Photography and Photographer. That book includes Cartier-Bresson's forward to The Decisive Moment in addition to other essays and reflections on photography and photographers. Reading one against the other is both useful and enjoyable.

A classic, from a brilliantly photographic genius.

This book is tiny. Aside from being damaged on arrival I was shocked at how small this edition was. This book does not lay flat so that some of Bressons Most iconic work while being given a two page spread cannot be appreciated because presentation is cramped and slightly misaligned where the pages meet. another problem is that some pages contain two or three images which renders them too small to be fully appreciated. this presentation renders one of the great monographs souless. I am returning this book.