The man affectionately known in the world of photography as H.C.B. famously refused to be interviewed throughout most of his life. In his later years, after essentially quitting photography, he relented. In two interviews, one with Charlie Rose on PBS, in 2000, another with David Friend for Vanity Fair, in 2003. Henri Cartier-Bresson spoke about his passions, his beliefs, and his work. By then, he had nothing to lose; the legend had already been fixed by his actions. He said, "The camera can be a machine gun, a warm kiss, a sketchbook. Shooting a camera is like saying yes! Yes! Yes! There's no maybe; all the ‘maybes' should go in the trash.

"Last week, the International Center of Photography opened an exhibition of some 300 postcard-sized prints from a sketchbook made by H.C.B. in 1946. This was what he felt was his best work to date, chosen for an exhibition mounted by the Museum of Modern Art a year later. At the time, he was 38 but he had already lived several lifetimes.

First, as the son of a wealthy textile manufacturer, Cartier-Bresson lived a privileged life. He studied art in Paris with a Cubist painter and hung out at Café la Place Blanche with the founder of Surrealism, Andre Breton, and his circle of poets and artists, including Max Ernst, Paul Eluard, and Gertrude Stein. The idea of spontaneous expression, especially the practice of "destination-less walks of discovery" through the streets of Paris, formed in him the capacity for premeditated alertness for the unexpected in everyday encounters.

In his early 20s, Cartier-Bresson acquired Leica's newly invented 35mm camera and hit the road with a writer friend. They traveled to Spain, where H.C.B. made some of his best-known surrealist-inspired images, including a street scene dominated by a wall pierced by square openings, and an odd trio from a brothel across the street from his hotel. Later he traveled to Cuba, Mexico, and Morocco.

Photograph, left: Madrid, Spain, 1933. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum

The exhibition includes a series H.C.B. made while working on Jean Renoir's film, A Day in the Country. This was in 1936, the first summer that French workers were guaranteed paid holidays. Scenes of men fishing and couples enjoying picnics and boating parties along the banks of the Marne River express a newfound joyous abandon. The photographer's penchant for surrealism is blended with what he later called "a need to tell stories."

By 1931, Cartier-Bresson had defined himself as a photographer and began shooting for newspapers and magazine. Around that time, he made friends with Robert Capa and David ‘Chim' Seymour; all three shared a studio during the early 1930s and later founded Magnum Photos. In a conversation with Capa, he said that he was not a documentary photographer or a photojournalist but a Surrealist. Capa advised him to call himself photojournalist, get the assignments, and shoot what he wished. That turned out to be good advice, as clearly demonstrated in this exceptional show.

During World War II, Cartier-Bresson was captured and held in a German POW camp for three years. He was presumed dead. The Museum of Modern Art in New York began planning a memorial exhibition of his work. When he finally emerged unharmed in 1943, he joined the French Underground Photographers Association and covered the liberation of Paris. When H.C.B. learned about MoMA's plans, he began selecting images for the show, which opened in 1947.

What came to be known as The Decisive Moment is defined here in image after image. Cartier-Bresson, as he said, "craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was unrolling before my eyes." To show that he captured the scene within the frame of his 35mm film, H.C.B. always printed the negative's border - a conceit still considered one of the conventions of photojournalism. But the photograph that for many defines The Decisive Moment - Behind the Gare St. Lazare - is the only photograph in the show that has been cropped. It is shown here without apology, with the maker's hatch marks inked over a blurred wall at the left of the frame.

The intimate scale and quality of these photographs, which Cartier-Bresson himself printed, provide a neutral environment for an education about his process and artistic development. It becomes apparent that making the right choice - of subject, point of view, or time of day - was his greatest talent. There are surprising images, many never before exhibited, from a landscape without horizon or sky to a double portrait of Spanish prostitutes posing in their windows. In a group of pictures from Morocco, there are two versions of the same scene - one vertical and one horizontal - of children running across a sun-scorched field. That the photographer did not relegate one to the trash is his gift to the viewer; here he proves beyond doubt that there is one decisive moment per picture.

Illustration left: Original page of HCB's Scrapbook: Henri Matisse at home, Villa « Le Rêve », Vence, South of France, 1943. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum

Henri Cartier-Bresson's Scrapbook Photographs: 1932-46

The exhibition includes 331 original scrapbook photographs plus fifteen modern prints, and larger prints made for the 1947 MoMA exhibition. There is also a slide show with commentary by Cartier-Bresson.

Also at ICP:

Martin Munkacsi: Think While You Shoot!

Louise Brooks and the ‘New Woman' in Weimar Cinema

Americana Fantastica: Recent Acquisitions 2007

All on view through April 29, 2007