Martine Franck (1938 – 2012)

Martine Franck, Magnum photographer and the second wife of the late Henri Cartier-Bresson, is dead, aged 74. 

In Contact Theory, Ms Franck remembers being en scene to take this memorable image and how she chose this particular frame:

This picture was taken during the summer of 1976. I had just been given a grant by the Fondation Nationale de la Photographie …. to photograph the French on holiday. I was on my way to photograph a pop and rock festival at Le Castellet and decided to stop by and see my friend the architect Alain Capeilleres. I knew that Alain had just completed the swimming pool, he had talked about its conception the previous year and I was really excited to see it. He greeted me by saying that an Italian photographer had just come to take photographs for an architectural review and that I should go down to the pool and have a swim.

I saw a couple of people doing exercises and an empty hammock and and then all of a sudden a young boy got into the hammock, the first thing I noticed was the shadow and I ran. It was all over so quickly. I remember trying to find the best angle and being bothered by a towel on the left of the hammock and a bathing suit on the right, then Alain’s wife Lucie arrived in her sun hat, said hello to the young boy. A few seconds later another boy climbed into the hammock. I changed angles but the picture was gone. I had Tri X in my camera and I distinctly remember being concerned by the glare of the August midday sun on the white tilings. I had closed down to f.16 and was shooting at a 1000th of a second but I still knew I was going to be over exposed, however most important I was convinced I had an image.

The ultimate choice was easy. Frame 18a was discarded because of the towel on the left, the figures in the background were confused and I had framed too close to the shadow of the hammock. Frame 16a was a possibility but I would have had to crop the bathing suit on the right which I preferred not to do and the man doing push ups in the background was in a less interesting position. The image that had the greatest intensity and concision was to my mind frame 17a.