"When nothing was taboo"
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Paris in the 1930s.
Moving "effortlessly from slums to exclusive salons", the legendary photographer Brassaï captured the brothels, gay bars and backstreets of Paris's hazy night-time in its radical inter-war years.
Brassaï's photographs of lovers in cafes, the gargoyles of Notre Dame and the lamplit streets of Montmartre are some of the most iconic ever produced of Paris. A pioneer of night-time photography, he has shaped the view of the city as a place for romance, forever caught in a hazy twilight world of shadow. "The Paris you dream of, that's Brassaï's Paris," Anna Tellgren, curator of Brassaï: The Secret Signs of Paris at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, tells the BBC.
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And here I thought you were talking about when Adam and Eve were showing the fence around the Garden of Eve to Doug.
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The Steps of Montmatre is a lovely shot, and yet it may be the least interesting!
At my work the university library had a few shelves of photography 'coffee table' books within an extensive art book collection. Among them, the works of Beaton, Bresson, Adams, Capa, Ray, Mapelthorpe, Leibovitz, Bailey, and I remember Brassai too.
Ansel Adams was my favourite at the time, yet modern digital medium format makes his art photography easy-ish.
I now best love the old street scene photographs, a la Brassai, capturing a moment in b&w. A cafe, things like a smokey jazz joint, or life on a farm pre-tractor. -
I like portrait photography or informal pictures of people most of all.
Pictures of the natural world and pictures of wild animals would be in second place.
I have "an eye" for photography/ taking pictures (me and a million other people). I take pretty original pictures with good subject matter with results that are harmoniously framed.
I do this with my cheap Moto Edge and its lousy camera set up. The pictures aren't very clear. Actually, they are kind of hazy. I'm looking forward to having a phone with a good camera.
I could get into buying a digital camera but I wouldn't let myself spend the money.
I apologize in advance if this doesn't sound modest. I'm not delusional. I'm no Ansel Adams or Francesco Scavullo and never will be.
As to Paris, as I said in another post, I get that it's renowned, and its history fascinates me, but I don't, haven't, and certainly never will understand its culture.
This fits in with my theory that the brain can hold only so much interest, knowledge, information, and skill.
I've never understood the attraction of Paris. Parisian culture, in general, is wasted on me. The same thing is true of Berlin.
My best friend in college was passionate about both cities (including French philosophy, literature, and art), spoke German, and won a Fulbright scholarship to study in Berlin.
Some of that would have rubbed off on me if it was something that was going to happen.
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