Eugène Atget
Who was he?
Eugène Atget was a French Photographer that was widely known for his photographs of the Capital city of France (His hometown) Paris. He started his work in the late 1880s and his work supported art students and architect. Furthermore Eugene started his photography using a large format camera with a wide lense so he could fully capture the essence of the Capital city in detail.
MoodBoard Of His Work
Why did I choose him for my artist reference?
I chose Eugène as his style reminds me of the way pictures were around the time my grandad was growing up. I am aiming to re create this style making my images as close to the original images as possible. Even though his photography is more closely linked to everyday life and the precise architecture of the streets of Paris I believe I can still incorporate parts of his work into my own. I can also branch off his work with the layout of my own images as I can compare my present pictures with those taken in the past and look for any similarities and differences
Below is also a hyperlink that takes you to the MoMA sight where more pieces of his work are visible alongside more background knowledge of him.
https://www.moma.org/artists/229-eugene-atget
Image Analysis
Technical:
The shutter speed used seems to be quite high and quick because of the dark shadow effect that is visible around the outsides of the images. The ISO seems to be relatively low as the image is taken during high levels of light. This contrast of different lighting creates an eerie feeling to the images. This is further emphasised by the lack of people in the image as the street seems to be very desolate
Visual: This seems to be the end of a street leading up to a bank or a building of interest such as a cathedral. The reflection of the light off the stone floor creates a reflection and further increases the tone of the image giving it more of a haze look and feel. the texture seems to be quite sharp even though the camera must of been quite outdated. There also seems to be a clear pattern of the paved floor and how that type of detail and structure is then reflected towards the building of interest as that also has very high levels of detail into the architecture.
Contextual: In the late 1800s Photography was still just starting out. So pictures taken by Eugene were all incredibly powerful towards the movement of photography as they kept opening new ideas, angles and possibilities that people were yet to explore.
Conceptual: The notion behind this piece of work is that of a prestigious representation of the government. Eugene has taken into account how different factors change the way that the Cathedral is represented.