Description

Photography © The Estate of Robert Doisneau http://www.robertdoisneau.com/... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... Doisneau (1912-1994) is one of France's most noted photographers. He characterised himself as a "fisherman of images", wandering without a particular purpose along the streets of the city, his baited camera ready for action. "I like the idea that things are not controlled, that I can encounter something by chance."He wrote: "The marvels of daily life are exciting; no movie director can arrange the unexpected that you find in the street." Born to a working-class family in Gentilly, in the banlieu of Paris, his early surroundings--factories, shacks, slums, an array of workers, gypsies, beggars and day laborers--gave him a lasting awareness of the memory of place. A place, needless to say, far removed from that which Paris usually evoked. He began studying lithography at the age of 13. In 1929, he took his drafting skills to Paris where he worked as a lettering artist for a graphic arts studio, the Atelier Ullman, and began studying painting and drawing. Moved by a desire to record the images of Paris and the banlieu, the water coursing through the gutters, the masses of humanity, he borrowed a camera and found himself. Doisneau was exposed to photography in the advertising department of a pharmaceutical firm. Outside of his job, he began to see photography as a medium for at first a hobby--recording every day life during his wanderings through the streets of Paris.He sold his first photo-story to the Excelsior newspaper in 1932. He was a camera assistant to the sculptor Andrei Vigneaux and did military service prior to taking a job as an industrial and advertising photographer for the Renault auto factory at Billancourt in 1934. He was fired in 1939 and was forced to try freelance advertising and postcard photography to earn his living. Doisneau was hired by the Rapho photo agency in 1939 and worked there for several months until the inset of World War II. He was a member of the Resistance both as a soldier and as a photographer. He used his engraving skills to forge passports and identification papers. He photographed the Occupation and Liberation of Paris. Some of these images, especially of the liberation of Paris are photographic masterpices. Some of Doisneau's most remembered photographs were taken in the post-war era. He returned to freelance work and sold photographs to Life and other important international magazines. He joined the Alliance photo agency for a short time and began working with Rapho again in 1946. Against his better judgement Doisneau did high-society and fashion photography for Paris Vogue from 1948 to 1951. During his assignments with Vogue, the photographer became acquainted with high-society circles, for which, however, he did not have as much sympathy as he did for the common people in the streets. Perhaps his most famous photograph is Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville ("Kiss by the Hotel de Ville") http://www.masters-of-photogra... photo of a couple kissing in the busy streets of Paris. Who the couple were was a mystery until in 1993 Denise and Jean-Louis Lavergne took him to court for taking the picture without their knowledge. This action forced Doisneau to admit that he actually posed the shot in 1950 using actor/models Françoise Bornet and her then boyfriend Jacques Carteaud. Françoise was given an original print as part of her payment. In April 2005 she sold the print for 155,000 € at an auction.He has photographed many noted artists including Giacometti, Cocteau, Leger, Braque, and Picasso. Doisneau writes of his photography, "In fact there isn't any recipe - that would be too easy - but all these images that are growing old so gracefully were taken instinctively. I put all my trust in intuition, which contributes so much more than rational thought. This is a commendable approach, because you need courage to be stupid - it's so rare these days when there are so many intelligent people all over the place who've stopped looking because they're so knowledgeable. Yet that little extra something supplied by the model is precisely a `look,' like a legacy handed down to you from the distant past. It shoots straight along the optical axis and bores right through the photographer, the celluloid, the paper, and the viewer, like a laser beam scorching everything in its path, including, and a very good thing too, your critical faculties." Doisneau was in many ways a shy and unassuming man, rather like his photography. He lived in the Paris suburb of Montrouge. He died in 1994. please, visit his website http://www.robertdoisneau.com/...

Channel: Education Uploaded: November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am Author: Cybelephotography

Length: 02:59 Rating: 4.91 Views: 15616