Marc Riboud’s Eye
Marc Riboud’s introduction—and Cartier-Bresson quoting Max Jacob—reminded me that a photograph is not a confession but a crafted piece of work.
the book
I've been reading the Thames & Hudson edition of Marc Riboud’s photography collection.
In the introduction, Riboud writes about being a quiet child—someone who learned to let his eyes speak for him.
The famous photograph of a painter on the Eiffel Tower brought him to Magnum, but his early days there were not easy. His photos were called isolated, lacking connection, lacking a thread.
Bresson's rebuke
That was when Cartier-Bresson quoted Max Jacob to him:
Artists are not penitents in the process of confessing their sins.
They are artisans who have a specific end in view… a novel is made like an article of clothing, cut to a certain pattern.
If you put something of yourself into it, all well and good; but you still have to learn how the thing is made.
Riboud was being told:
- Your photos are beautiful.
- But they do not build anything.
- They do not connect.
- They do not construct a storyline.
Bresson wasn’t criticizing the images individually—he was saying that art is more than isolated sparks.
make a photograph
What Bresson borrowed from Max Jacob becomes both a warning and a guide:
- Don’t treat each photograph as a confession.
- Don’t rely only on emotion, impulse, or inspiration.
- Don’t mistake fragments for a whole.
Instead:
- Think like an artisan.
- Build toward something.
- Understand the structure behind the beauty.
- Learn how the thing is made
Looking at Riboud’s later work—his journeys through Asia, his gentle approach to people, his calm but consistent way of seeing—I now feel how much he transformed after that critique.
He found not just moments, but a storyline.
seeing is not enough
This is meaningful to me.
Perhaps that is what I need to learn next:
👉Seeing and feeling is not enough, but to construct.
I will try best to not just see the world, but learn how the thing is made;
How a photograph is made.