Photography Club: Masters of Photography I

I'm very excited to start a review of the greatest names of photography of all times. It's difficult to choose whom to begin with, there's a great number of them and all around the world, I also thought about beginning by alphabetical order, but it didn't seem right, maybe you can help me. I believe that the best way to start is to decide quickly and without thinking... mmm how about, Robert Doisneau. Yes, the one of the last name I've never been able to pronounce right, even after taking French classes, but whose photographs I've never forgot.

Robert Doisneau (April 14, 1912 - 1st of April, 1994) is one of the most well known French photographers. Noted for his frank and often humorous depictions of Parisian street life, he focused on people photography, making images of common people as he wandered through the streets of Paris and its suburbs. His work stands out because of it's spontaneous, real or pretended, images that often present defocused areas.

Among his most recognizable work is Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville ("Kiss by the Hotel de Ville"). In April 2005 a signed copy was sold for over $ 200.000 in an auction and acquired by a Swiss collector. The original print of this iconic image was sold by Françoise Bornet, the woman in the photograph. Bornet and her then boyfriend Jacques Carteaud posed for the seemingly spontaneous photo in 1950. Doisneau apparently saw them kissing and asked them to recreate the action for his camera in front of the Hotel de Ville. The casual quality of this very posed image captured the romanticism of after-the-War Paris. Doisneau took the picture for a series on lovers in Paris for Life magazine through the French picture agency Rapho.

Robert Doisneau "Kiss by the Hotel de Ville" 1950

Francoise Bornet holds the copy
of the photograph in front of the
Hotel de Ville.

This is a selection that I did of some of Doisneaus works as representatives of his humorous style: