Anybody can take photographs. I have seen in the Herald Tribune some taken by a monkey that managed, with a Polaroid camera, as well as some camera o… - Henri Cartier-Bresson

When you use a camera, your visual concentration is intense, as it is when you draw. But if you overshoot, your contact sheet is likely to become a jumble of peelings. You need a lot of sand to discover a nugget. Shooting is a play between pickpocketing and tightrope walking; an endless play, fraught with huge tension.

The picture-story involves a joint operation of the brain, the eye and the heart. The objective of this joint operation is to depict the content of some event which is in the process of unfolding, and to communicate impressions. Sometimes a single event can be so rich in itself and its facets that it is necessary to move all around it in your search for the solution to the problems it poses — for the world is movement, and you cannot be stationary in your attitude toward something that is moving. Sometimes you light upon the picture in seconds; it might also require hours or days. But there is no standard plan, no pattern from which to work.

You have to have some psychological insight, you have to know the people and you must work in a way that’s acceptable to them. There you must smile — never laugh, because that’s considered making fun. Smile, take your time, and never come bursting in with your own personality. You have to lie low. Of course you can push and perhaps raise your voice a notch, but like a sensitive emulsion, a sensitive plate. Approach gently, tenderly, and never intrude, never push. Otherwise, if you use your elbows, it will work against you. Above all, be human!