Cartier-Bresson, Vivian Maier, Saul Leiter

Three foundational street photographers, three completely different lessons. Study them together to map the range of the form.

Cartier-Bresson: the decisive moment

The Frenchman who founded modern street photography and co-founded Magnum. His gift was geometry plus timing: the patience to wait for every element of a scene to align into the single perfect instant. He rarely cropped and almost never used flash. From him you take the discipline of waiting, the grammar of composition, the idea that the photograph already exists in the world and your job is to be ready for it. His Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare, a man frozen mid-leap over a puddle with his reflection beneath him, is the textbook decisive moment.

Vivian Maier: shooting for its own sake

The American nanny whose enormous, brilliant street archive was discovered only after her death. She shot a waist-level Rolleiflex, looking down, which let her photograph strangers candidly and close. From her you take two things: a method, the looking-down candid camera that maps onto your hip shots, and a philosophy, that she made the work for the love of seeing, not for an audience. She is the answer to anyone who asks what the point is if no one sees your photographs.

Saul Leiter: poetry in the partial view

The painter who photographed quiet, abstract early color through rain, fog, glass, and steam, with his subject half-hidden. From him you take the use of reflections, obstructions, and shallow focus to find poetry in an ordinary corner. He is the master of the obscured, layered view, and his world of wet glass connects directly to your CPL and Bologna's rainy streets.

Put it into practice

Spend one outing on each. Day one, Cartier-Bresson: find a stage and wait for the decisive moment. Day two, Maier: shoot only from waist level, candidly. Day three, Leiter: shoot only through glass, rain, or reflection. Three days, three different photographers living in your hands.