#Paris

“Photography is an alibi, a pretext to see everything, to go everywhere, to communicate with everyone”

 

~ Sabine Weiss
(1924-2021)

"I do what I feel, that's all. I am an ordinary photographer working for his own pleasure. That's all I've ever done."

~ Andre Kertész
(1894-1985)

 

Perhaps more than any other photographer, Andre Kertész
discovered and demonstrated the special aesthetic of the small camera. These beautiful little machines seemed at first hardly serious enough for the typical professional, with his straightforward and factual approach to the subject. Most of those who did use small cameras tried to make them do what the big camera did better: deliberate, analytical description.

Kertész had never been much interested in deliberate analytical description; since he had begun photographing in 1912 he had sought the revelation of the elliptical view, the unexpected detail, the ephemeral moment - not the epic but the lyric truth. When the first 35 mm camera - the Leica - was marketed in 1925, to seemed to Kertész that it had been designed for his own eye.

Like his fellow Hungarian Moholy-Nagy, he loved the play between pattern and deep space; the picture plane of his photographs is like a visual trampoline, taut and resilient. In the picture opposite half of the lines converge toward a vanishing point in deep space; the other half knit the image together in a pattern as shallow as a spider web, in which the pedestrian dangles like a fly.

In addition to this splendid and original quality of formal invention, there is in the work of Kertész another quality less easily analyzed, but surely no less important. It is a sense of the sweetness of life, a free and childlike pleasure in the beauty of the world and the preciousness of sight."

~ John Szarkowski
(Looking At Photographs, 100 Pictures from the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art by John Szarkowski)

“Paris was that very special place where I defined myself as a photographer”

 

~ Louis Stettner
(1922-2016)

“In photography, the smallest thing can be great subject. The little human detail can become a leitmotive”

 

~ Henri Cartier Bresson
(1908-2004)

“The moment always dictates in my work. Everybody can look, but they don’t necessarily see. I see a situation and I know that it’s right”

~ André Kertész
(1894-1985)

“Be sure to take the lens cap off before photographing”

~ Elliott Erwitt

“I always felt the difference between New York and Paris is that Paris nourishes you by the fact that it is very beautiful.You see living history all around you. The whole flavor of the place is one of harmony and beauty. It raises the human spirit"

 

~ Louis Stettner

“There are days when the technique of an aimless stroll or destination works like a charm, flushing out pictures from the non stop urban spectacle"

 

~ Robert Doisneau

“In life’s saddest winter moments, when you’ve been under a cloud for weeks, suddenly a glimpse of something wonderful can change the whole complexion of things, your entire feeling.The kind of photography I like to do, capturing the moment, it is very much like that break in the clouds. In a flash, a wonderful picture seems to come out of nowhere”

 

~ Elliott Erwitt

“A photograph should always have the last word. Surrounded by silence, it should by its presence dominate all those who look at it. Even the photographer should keep quiet. The picture is taken, their work is done.”

~ Louis Stettner
1922-2016

“The real night people live at night not out of necessity, but because they they want to. They belong to the world of pleasure and love, a secret suspicious world closed to the uninitiated"

 

Brassaï
(1899-1984)

“You cannot live when you are untouchable. Life is vulnerability”

~ Edouard Boubat
(1923 - 1999)

“Life is short. Break the rules. Forgive quickly, kiss slowly. Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably and never regret anything that made you smile. The world I was trying to present was one where I would feel good, where people would be friendly, where I could find the tenderness I longed for. My photos were like a proof that such a world could exist.”

 

~ Robert Doisneau
(1912-1994)

“Every photo is my first photo. I have avoided nothing, roads, trains, plains, tiredness, departures, passions, morning light, desire for others, life. People often ask me “How did you begin?” I like to answer: “With light". I look out every morning, like a farmer, at the grey and white sky of Paris. I wake with the promise of sunshine”

~ Edouard Boubat(1923 - 1999)

“It seemed John and Paul could compose anywhere.They would wander over to the piano, sit down and start playing, taking no notice of what was going on around them. Here in their George V Hotel suite they were composing “I Feel Fine”. George and Ringo wandered over and started to join in. It was fascinating to watch how intense they were while creating a song"

~ Harry Benson

"People like my photos because they see in them what they would see if they stopped rushing about and took the time to enjoy the city."

~ Robert Doisneau

“Darling, you are in love with my camera!”

~ Georges Dambier
(1925-2011)

“Across the narrow Rue Lepic from the Moulin de La Galette, up eight flights of stairs under the thin roof of a Montmartre studio garret lived an old widow. She was the wife of Leon Fauche, an impressionist painter who was a close friend of Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec and Renoir. Her husband died leaving her with a small military pension and 60 paintings. Montmartre changed but the widow stayed on. Each day she would go down to the streets crowded with tourists seeking the past and buy flowers to place under her husband’s self portrait. Then at twilight, as the weakening evening rays made a shadowy symbol of a long dead Paris through her studio window of the Moulin de la Galette, she was absorbed into darkness with her memories”

 

~ Esquire Magazine, October 1958

“All my photographs are portraits, self portraits because you can’t photograph someone without reflecting/echoing, like a bat sending out a signal that comes back to you. You get not only a picture of who you are photographing but you get a picture of yourself at the same time”

 

~ Bruce Davidson

“Everybody can look but they don’t necessarily see”

 

~ André Kertész (1894-1985)

“I had set up near a bakery at peak hour and after a few attempts, I was not sure I had the right image. Then I noticed a boy seriously counting his pennies while waiting for his turn and I explained to him what I needed from him. Exit the bakery in a hurry with the loaf held tilted under his left arm. The first attempt was too tense, the second was perfect. We went back into the bakery to eat a chocolate treat together"

~ Willy Ronis

“250 grams of magic and perfection in our daily lives. A French way of life. We had been fighting for years with bakers and the world of gastronomy for its recognition. The baguette is now a Unesco intangible heritage.”

~ Emmanuel Macron (President of France)

“Light, gesture, gaze, movement, silence, tension, rest, rigor, relaxation. I would like to incorporate everything in this instant, to express the essence of humanity with the minimum of means”

 

~ Sabine Weiss