As a young man in Budapest, Munkacsi worked for a sports paper, and from 1927 until his emigration to the United States in 1934, he was a crack reporter for Berlin's Ullstein publications, among others. During the latter period, his pictures were widely reproduced and admired in Europe. The young Cartier-Bresson learned from the taut choreography of this photograph that split-second timing was essential to his art.

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