Never take a mean photo

French photographer Willy Ronis died earlier this month, the last of the Cartier-Bresson generation.

I’m not enough of an expert to know where Ronis stands in the photographers’ pantheon, but for me, he was the best, the most painterly, and the most honest.

There’s an excellent slideshow of his work on the Hotshoe blog.

I only knew some of his pictures, and shamefully little about the man. What struck me most as I read the obits was his philosophy, as exemplified in these quotes from a 2005 interview:

“I never took a mean photo. I never wanted to make people look ridiculous. I always had a lot of respect for the people I photographed.”

So perhaps that’s one lesson (among the many) photographers and photojournalists could learn from Willy Ronis:

Never take a mean photo.

http://hotshoeblog.wordpress.com/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/6207054/Willy-Ronis.html

French photographer Willy Ronis, the last of the Cartier-Bresson generation, died earlier this month.

I’m not enough of an expert to know where Ronis stands in the photographers’ pantheon, but for me, he was the best – the most painterly, and the most honest.

There’s an excellent slideshow of some of his work in this obit on the Hotshoe blog.

I only knew some of his pictures, and shamefully little about the man. What struck me most as I read the obits was his philosophy, as exemplified in these quotes from a 2005 interview:

“I never took a mean photo. I never wanted to make people look ridiculous. I always had a lot of respect for the people I photographed.”

So perhaps that’s one lesson (among many) photographers and photojournalists could learn from Willy Ronis:

Never take a mean photo.