Photographer - Eugene Atget

Eugene Atget was born in Bordeaux, a small French city, on February 12, 18 57. He took lots of pictures of architecture and Paris streets. He was orphaned at 7 and raised by his uncle. He was a sailor, then an actor, and married the women with whom he spent the rest of his life with, Valentine DeLafosse, who was also an actress. He became a photographer more for financial reasons rather than out of love for it. He died on August 4, 1927. ( I couldn't find any influences he had, because I think he didn't really look for them, and did it just for money.)

He photographed with a large-format camera and the images were exposed and developed as 18x24cm glass dry plates. Many of his pictures were more whispy with ambient light rather than a really sharp focus on something. This was due to long exposures. He also used vignetting on several of his pictures. Although he tooks pictures of streets, they were older and not the main bustling streets one would think of when thinking of Paris. There weren't many people or traffic in his street pictures mostly because he took them earlier and because he preferred smaller nooks in the street rather than the big ones. Atget said once that, "I have done little justice to the Great City of Paris. I love that quote because although he tried his best and made good photographs, he loved the city so much that he knew his photos couldn't show how great the city was.


I like this picture's composition and the way the building looks at this angle. I also like the light in the background kind of faded and the lamp sticking out into the whiteness.

I like this picture because the cobblestones and trees are in focus, but the building is what draws my eye. It is the most interesting in the picture, although it is farther away, smaller, not quite in focus, and in a kind of funny light.


I really like this picture. I like how its in focus, and how cool the buildings look and how the road curves for whatever reason. But what really caught my eye was the wooden cart thing on the far left thats tilted up. Is somebody holding it or is that how it sits? Why is it there? Who's is it? What is it for? I love when I see something in a photograph that asks me these questions.


I like this picture mainly because when I first looked at it I was like oh thats cool.. and then I asked if I was in this place who I have taken this picture. And that got me thinking. And I decided that I definitely wouldn't have. I would have probably gotten close up and would've had the drain pipe or the rest of the important things. So although this isn't my favorite picture, it taught me that although sometimes its good to be close up, sometimes its better to step back ad get more of the background stuff in.

I like this picture for many of the same reasons as the third one, because its very similar to the third one. The road curves the same way, and the buildings are both the same way with interesting stuff on it. It also has a little banister thing at the very bottom like the other picture. And the last similarity is that there are three cart things that are all tilted the same way which ask the same questions as the other picture. But, this picture has a different color which gives it a different feel.