Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer. Born into a bourgeois family, he enjoyed the benefit of indulging in the arts. As a young boy, he owned a Box Brownie that he used for taking holiday snapshots. Later in life, he would purchase a Leica camera with 50 mm lens. He entered Lhote Academy of Cubist painter and sculptor André Lhote in Paris. He attended the University of Cambridge, and studied English, art and literature. He then completed his mandatory service in the French Army. During World War II, he was a Corporal in the Film and Photo unit. He was captured by German soldiers, and spent 35 months in Nazi prisoner-of-war camps. He covered the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth focusing on the people lining the London streets. He worked with photographers like David “Chim” Seymour and Robert Capa with whom he formed Magnum Photos. He was assigned to India and China. In India, he photographed Mahatma Gandhi just 15 minutes before he was shot dead. He covered the Chinese Civil War, and was the first Western photographer to photograph “freely” in the post-war Soviet Union. He founded the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation with his wife and daughter to preserve and share his legacy.