Faceless: The Most Famous Photographer in the World
by David Douglas Duncan
Category: Photography

He has been called "the phantom of photography", but he sees himself as a "nonviolent anarchist" with a Leica, film and geometric vision. Henri Cartier-Bresson, the most acclaimed candid photographer in the world, is revered as a demigod by legions of miniature-camera enthusiasts, who have almost never seen a picture of him. After half a century of shooting everybody, everywhere, he has remained the photographer without a face until now. In May 2000, while on assignment chronicling camera old-timers, Cartier-Bresson decided to shoot his subject, friend and colleague David Douglas Duncan at the Picasso museum in Paris. Upon arriving at the shoot, Duncan seized a rare opportunity. He borrowed his wife’s zoom-lens camera and asked Cartier-Bresson for a roll of film. Then, without a word between them, Duncan began to photograph Cartier-Bresson. Duncan fully realized the outstanding nature of these images and decided to turn them into a tribute to a master of photography. This book captures the true essence of portraiture and is sure to become a classic of its genre - a one-of-a-kind portrait of a photographer and a lesson of spontaneity in portrait photography.