Chasing Cartier-Bresson: Photographs by D.R. Martin

Tucked away in cardboard boxes in hundreds of basements and attics lie the forgotten, dusty remnants of “artistic phases” from our younger days, often remembered, if at all, with mortification. A couple of years ago, D.R. Martin found his cardboard box, and what he thought was, “Hey, these aren’t bad.” He had 200 sheets of negatives from his days as a photographer, pictures he’d taken in Duluth, Minneapolis, and Europe in the late 1960s, when he was 18 and smitten by the methods of Henri Cartier-Bresson. That French photographer specialized in the spontaneous shot—what he called “the decisive moment” when the lighting, setting, and subject was suddenly just right. Life organized the composition; the photographer’s art was to recognize those moments and even hunt them down. Martin’s compositions are striking, now with an added sense of being removed from time. An old man peers into an Italian newspaper, oblivious to the frenzied activity of birds around him. A young girl leans against a wall, staring into the distance. Four protesters rest after an event, each lost in their own thoughts. Photography is an instantaneous art, all about being in the right place at the right time. It’s good that these found a new place and time as well. Icebox, 2401 Central Ave. N.E., (612) 788-1790