Mar 23, 20223 min read

Parisian Street Photography from the 30s to the 80s: Robert Doisneau

Le violoncelle sous la pluie, Paris 1957

"Doisneau is remembered for his modest, playful, and ironic images of amusing juxtapositions, mingling social classes, and eccentrics in contemporary Paris streets and cafes. Influenced by the work of André Kertész, Eugène Atget, and Henri Cartier-Bresson, in more than twenty books of photography, he presented a charming vision of human frailty and life as a series of quiet, incongruous moments."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Doisneau

The way I discovered Robert Doisneau perfectly encapsulates the way I like the internet to work. A photo came up in my Facebook feed that really tickled me in an absurdist and surreal spot that is always thirsty for content. It was an old, b&w photo of a man in a trench coat and beret holding an umbrella over a floating ghost of the bed sheet variety. I loved it. So much, in fact, that I ran a reverse image search on it (for the first time, which surprised even me) and discovered the original photo (the title image, above) by Doisneau, "Le violoncelle sous la pluie, Paris 1957," one in a series featuring cellist and actor Maurice Baquet.

Some very light Googling took me to his most famous photograph, "Le Baiser de l'hôtel de ville," 1950:

There's actually a little controversy regarding "The Kiss by the Hôtel de Ville," but for me the real hero of the photo is the tightly-buttoned guy with the firm beret just to the left of the couple. Now that I know the photo was staged, his expression makes a little more sense - "What, they're kissing again? For the camera? Mon Dieu..."

Before long, I was browsing for what probably translates into weeks in internet time, but was likely around an hour on the official Robert Doisneau website, his Atelier, and rediscovering the power and intensity of candid black and white photography. What a catalog, documenting the multi-decade career of a photographer who clearly enjoyed a good reputation, had connections, and celebrated all aspects of his time and place. I absolutely love what I have seen so far, finding it inspirational in a number of different ways. One of those ways involves using some of his images as source material for some creative expression of my own. Please see the very end of this post for some examples of that.

"Robert Doisneau was born in 1922 in Gentilly, a suburb of Paris.

After his undistinguished youth behind the macrame curtains of a conventional middle-class family, Robert is fifteen when he learns engraving and lithography at the Estienne School in Paris and starts designing labels for drug packaging.

He becames a camera assistant at André Vigneau’s studio in 1931, where he discovers artistic outlets that will spur him on. The four years he spent working for the advertising department of Renault car maker, from where he was fired for repeated lateness, led him to the attractive position of independent photographer.

World War II bursts out then, putting an end to his projects. Later, in the Parisian post-war euphoria, despite the fact that he daily deals with orders to make a living, he hoards the photos that will meet with great success, obstinately cruising where “there is nothing to see”, favoring furtive points, tiny pleasures lit by the ’ reflections of sunbeams on cities’ asphalt.

When he died in April 1994, he left behind 450,000 negatives that tell an entertaining story of his time with a tender and observant eye, which must not hide the depth of his thought, his irreverent attitude toward power and authority, his relentlessly free-thinking mind."

https://www.robert-doisneau.com/en/robert-doisneau/

The following film-strip style gallery features the 10 photos I selected to post on IG and FB. Following that are further selections of Doisneau's work that caught my fancy.