Henri Cartier-Bresson

Yesterday was the final day of the Henri Cartier-Bresson: Speaking through Pictures exhibition in Gwanhwamun. I can honestly say that I was not disappointed one bit.

Cartier-Bresson is a man that is mostly known for his influence on photojournalism, but much of his work is really under appreciated. Yesterday was the first time that I saw any of his portrait shots and they are amazing. I spent more time looking at those than at any of his well know works.

A few things about the exhibit were slightly unpleasant. The English translations of the descriptions were only available at the start of each section, to tell you what it was about. That part I get and I feel having descriptions at each photo is a lecture for a non-Korean. What was strange was the quality of the translations. It seems like they had more than one translator, because at time everything was perfect and high quality, but they some descriptions left me scratching my head about just what they meant to say.

Another problem is that I arrived late. Seoul has a lot of people looking for something interesting to do. Many people truly want to see exhibitions like this, so things get pretty packed fast. I arrived at 11, not 10am like usual, and spent half my time waiting for the people in front of me to just shuffle along so that I could get my money’s worth as well. My fault, I know.

And then one weird complain. The exhibit was too big with nowhere to go to take a break. If you have to stand/shuffle for 2 hours, then a place to sit and have a drink would be nice to have as an option.

And one real compliment. People were generally very well behaved. So often Koreans, because they grow up in such densely populated cities, completely disregard people around them. People here were usually make efforts not to get in each other’s ways did not run around like mad pigs who were just shot with BB guns. Ten Q berry muchee.