Perhaps one of the toughest obstacles I've encountered as an amateur photographer has been the great divide between languages, cultures, and a general unfamiliarity with the subjects in my travels. While landscapes will never shy away from the lens, many people find it easy to run and hide when a foreigner with a camera tries to capture something that locals would prefer to keep to themselves.
With this in mind, Bresson's line about people showing "what they do not suspect is within them" reassures me that the best photos to take are not those dime-a-dozen, postcard-style cliches that make their way into every middle-class American photo album. Mr. Bresson's words urge us to break past the thin barrier between locals and tourists, and to graciously capture our subjects in a way that they may not understand at first, but would truly appreciate if they could see the end result.
Bresson's colleagues and contemporaries held him in highest esteem for his ability to retain some sense of humanity in an industry that had all but lost it. Despite the depth of his works, Bresson still relied on money, later proclaiming his own ambitions to be materialistic.
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