Eugene Atget – The Photographer who Walked Fin de Siècle Paris

At the start of 1890, Eugène Atget pinned a sign to the front door of his apartment.

Documents pour artistes

It was an advert for business and a declaration that Atget was now a photographer.

Photography had not been his first choice. He came to it through work as a sailor, an actor, and finally as an artist. He gave up painting when he realised his talents were pale in comparison to others. But the experience taught Atget of the artist’s need for subject matter which made him consider photography.

His intention was to supply artists with photographs of landscapes, buildings, street scenes, people, animals, and flowers. What he called “Documents for artists.” He thought this would be good business as it meant his photographs would help artists spend more time in the studio and less looking for subject matter.

Camera technology changed considerably between 1870 and 1890. Cameras were still unwieldy boxes on tripod legs, but they were lighter, and easier to carry. More importantly, images could be produced more quickly using dry plate photography.

Atget (1857-1927) wandered the streets of Paris dressed in a large black cloak and floppy hat, his camera on its tripod slung over his shoulder. He drifted until something triggered a response which he stopped to photograph.

Paris is the city of the flâneur. Its streets and boulevards invite perambulation. Its arrondissements are filled with hidden beauty that trigger involuntary memory. Atget was a flâneur, who wandered the city waiting for his “madeleine moment” to photograph. A chance encounter with a prostitute idling by her front door; a hawker selling wares from a cart; a maitre d‘s blurred face at the door of a restaurant; a shop window filled with mannequins; or the empty cobbled street still warm with the impression of activity.