BY HANNAH ELLIOTT, Robinson High

Looking for something really interesting to do over the winter break? Check out the Tampa Museum of Art’s prized exhibit of the work of French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, and some outstanding student work as well.

Cartier-Bresson is often called the father of modern photojournalism, and has inspired and contributed to the evolution of the images we now see all over modern media.

His work portrays pure, thought-provoking human experience from all over the world. He saw a camera as a sketchbook, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity.

The photographs in the exhibit, “The Man, the Image & the World,” each tell their own story of joy or hardship, each suggesting a journey. Through these faces of human existence, viewers can build their own plot lines.

In conjunction with the retrospective, the museum sponsored a high school photography competition with the theme of “Journeys.” Abby  Jetmundsen, a senior at Plant High, won first place and $2,500 with her complex photograph called Blink.

She said she wanted to express that she saw a journey as “an extended process, not as a moment that can easily by portrayed within a single frame.”

Jetmundsen overlapped multiple frames to portray this idea. “Winning the competition was a dream come true,” she said. “I spent weeks working on my entry.”

The Cartier-Bresson exhibit runs through Jan. 13.