Eugene Atget

[cliveh]

I think I once read that when Berenice Abbott showed some images by Atget to Alfred Stieglitz he dismissed them as of no importance.

 

[DREW WILEY]

I don't know about that rumor, but Abbot's determination was certainly influential in attracting attention to Atget. The problem with a pile of
his prints, is that he did take so many damn pictures of so many things, and the ones we might consider artistically worthy were probably
the needles in the haystack.

 

[cliveh]

I don't know about that rumor, but Abbot's determination was certainly influential in attracting attention to Atget. The problem with a pile of
his prints, is that he did take so many damn pictures of so many things, and the ones we might consider artistically worthy were probably
the needles in the haystack.

And this harps back to zen photography, practice, practice and practice, with simplicity of means.

 

[DREW WILEY]

One often forgets that the majority of shots taken by Edward Weston were routine commercial portraits - competent but relatively uninspired; and Ansel Adams supported himself as a commercial photographers, with considerable numbers of those prints not being worth much. Atget apparently did well enough to support himself and his family, and was probably just opportunistic with some spare film from time to time, and tweaked certain shots more for his personal interest rather than mere sales inventory. Then as he got older he obviously revisited certain places frequently and perhaps thought of himself as more an aesthetic documentarian, rather than a commercial one. Who knows. His greatest known shots seem to be visual soliloquies, really intended for himself. I know that feeling, but otherwise don't pretend to know what went on inside that man's head other than sheer brilliance at times. It's enough to recognize his visual strategies and the end result.

 

[DREW WILEY]

I should have added that Atget continued to stubbornly work with a camera and printing process that was virtually archaic later in his life,
when his best work was done. He would have made a good candidate for APUG, and would have been laughed at by all the youngsters on the
street with their new Apple watches.

 

[Besk]

I haven't seen very many of Atget's images but the ones I have seen have affected my desire
to photograph the things around me very much. I am a big fan.

 

[Richard S. (rich815)]

Can someone show me some specific examples of images and describe to me Atget's genius coming through? I don't mean to be argumentative or adversarial but I view his work and mostly see fairly pedestrian scenes, not especially interesting or creative composition, and wonder if they were not from such a time as they were shot would not be anything very special. His background story and history notwithstanding, why should that matter in the overall enjoyment or judgement of a single particular image? I could list a slew of photographers who do float my boat (Kertesz, Brassai, Winogrand, Weston, Link, Hine, Moriyama, Evans, Abbott, Leavitt, Sujimoto, Kenna, Capa) and I'd like to learn more to enjoy Atget but j just don't see it. Sure perhaps it's just a purely subjective thing and it's not my taste but I rarely find any photographer as bland as I do him. Perhaps I just need some help seeing it...

 

[dasBlute]

ok, I'll bite. but first:

If his work does not speak to you, then happily move along,
there are *many* other artist's works to be enamored with.
You yourself have covered a *lot* of ground just with those
you mentioned...

I personally do not think Atget's appeal lays in the individual image,
but the body of work as a whole.

"... if they were not from such a time as they were shot
would not be anything very special"

But they *are* from a particular time, and that aspect
*cannot* be removed from the work. And his approach, much
like Evan's later, embraces that very fleeting moment.
He often looks at places which are at the near-end of their
long existence, fading from view. To me, he looks forwards
and backwards simultaneously.

I will offer only one image. The waiter's name is unrecorded.
He stood still - probably for a few minutes, maybe fascinated
with the contraption, maybe he had seen the dowdy old man
on other mornings. He could not know that we would be talking
about him today. He stands in mute testimony to all things
French, but also other small good things: to a clean shirt,
a well groomed mustache, a good job, a love of food and it's
proper presentation, but especially: a hungry and curious eye
with a capacity to see, a propensity to linger, and a joy with
what is apprehended. We can look at him and see ourselves.



-Tim

 

[Richard S. (rich815)]

Richard,

I wouldn't worry about it. As long as you've given the stuff a fair shot subjectively/objectively, and you've looked at/studied enough art, trust your own conclusions and move on.

There are some big names who's work does nothing for me. I don't worry about it anymore.

Yeah it's no big deal it's just that I feel I might be missing out on something or can learn and expand my education in art that may be lacking. But that said there's photography work I do not favor but I can still see and understand why other might like it and see why I don't vs others but with Atget I'm just confused as to all the praise and excitement and I just don't see it. Tim's example and explanation above helps a lot and I do like that particular example of Atget's. That said it does not seem typical of most of his work I see in books or online.

 

[removed account4]

hi Richard

he way I look at it is atget comes from a long line of
photographers going to ancient lands and photographing
stuff like the pyramids or Sphinx or the roman ruins or other ruins from
the age of antiquities. he was asked by the library ( sorry can't remember which one )
to record olde Paris because of urban renewal.
he approached the city the same way someone might have approached the antiquities
( maybe ) showing things the way they were, how they existed and might be remembered..
including the homeless and "the little professions" tinkerer, umbrella repairman, ragman &c
he woke up early in the morning and photographed.
today in the states ( maybe in other places too ?) there is a government project started in the 1933 (HABS-HAER )
dedicated in photographing places and things the same way for the exact same reasons ..
so there is some sort of visual record of what is or was there so one might learn .. ( without a past there is no future )
his photographs might be boring to some, or poorly exposed, or vignetted or poorly printed
or empty .. I both enjoy looking at them, and they kind of make me sad at the same time.
there is an emptiness to them that I think is the reason they make me feel sort of sad ..
having worked with glass negatives and paper negatives, I am also amazed at the skill he had
to photograph like he did. even wih fast panchromatic film it would be hard to do what he did ..
( and he did so much of it too )

sorry for rambling ...

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

I will offer only one image. The waiter's name is unrecorded.
He stood still - probably for a few minutes, maybe fascinated
with the contraption, maybe he had seen the dowdy old man
on other mornings. He could not know that we would be talking
about him today. He stands in mute testimony to all things
French, but also other small good things: to a clean shirt,
a well groomed mustache, a good job, a love of food and it's
proper presentation, but especially: a hungry and curious eye
with a capacity to see, a propensity to linger, and a joy with
what is apprehended. We can look at him and see ourselves.

View attachment 104942

My compliments. Another beautifully written post. Even more so the above.

Ken

 

[Richard S. (rich815)]

Agree. Thanks Tim.

 

[DREW WILEY]

There was also quite an urge to record the traditional look of Paris street corner neighborhoods etc in deliberate protest to the redevelopment
or modernization schemes of the city initiated by Napoleon III. Atget was known to be personally livid about this. I feel the same way about
recording historic ruins or towns in this country, which get leveled for the sake of hideously generic subdivisions, strip malls, fast food franchises, and big box stores.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Richard - you need to look at either a very well done folio on Atget or an actual museum presentation. He wasn't JUST documenting nostalgaic Paris culture. He transformed nominal subjects into something else. The Surrealists picked up on this. Often his shots of park sculptures, like a lion beside a stairway, for example, seems to actually become alive, haunted. A cement vase becomes mysteriously as monumental as the pyramids of Egypt. Then there were those stunning timeless reflections in pools which have probably never been equalled for sheer mystery and pathos in the history of photography. To others (not me so much) he was the pioneer of quirky subjects in street photography - street vendors, the circus, turning the ordinary into the surreal. Then there were the conventions he first broke - complex confusing reflections in windows, with one scene mysteriously interacting with another. Of course, his influence upon other photographers mostly transpired long after his own time. He was obviously forgotten for awhile.

 

[removed account4]

hi drew
regarding atget and surrealism ...
I always wondered if he agreed about the surrealism in the photographs
the lions and statuary &cc you spoke about without those things really being part of
his intent. often times people read whatever it is they want into artwork, and whether it was intended
by the artist who knows. he never made much money making the photographs of Paris
( maybe I am remembering wrong? ) he never had fame, and Bernice Abbott introducing him to the surrealists
whether he wanted his photographs to be seen as surreal gave him a place in the 20th century.
( his work was all found in and dug out of trash heap )
I'm not suggesting that he didn't realize he could create a world of shadows and dreams or acid trips
with his glass plates, I just wonder if it was something he intended, seeing the library just wanted
a as is document, not really surreal art.

I know of a photographer who was activein Boston doing documentary work for a long time,
whose work is found in the archives and print collection of the public library.
I got talking with a preservation friend about him and he chuckled..
mainly because this guy would be asked to photograph the plaza hotel or whatever
( for the same reason atget was photographing Paris )
and instead of architectural or interior views, ...
he would submit photographs of the stitching found in the cushions found in the lobby furniture. ...
and I wonder when someone in 59 years looks at the prints titled plaza hotel,
how they are supposed to get anything other than beading and a cross stitch ... from those photographs...

maybe it was an inside joke ( both with atget and this guy ) to see how far they could go to the periphery of
documentary photography ...and still get paid and asked to submit more work ...

 

[cliveh]

Can someone show me some specific examples of images and describe to me Atget's genius coming through? I don't mean to be argumentative or adversarial but I view his work and mostly see fairly pedestrian scenes, not especially interesting or creative composition, and wonder if they were not from such a time as they were shot would not be anything very special. His background story and history notwithstanding, why should that matter in the overall enjoyment or judgement of a single particular image? I could list a slew of photographers who do float my boat (Kertesz, Brassai, Winogrand, Weston, Link, Hine, Moriyama, Evans, Abbott, Leavitt, Sujimoto, Kenna, Capa) and I'd like to learn more to enjoy Atget but j just don't see it. Sure perhaps it's just a purely subjective thing and it's not my taste but I rarely find any photographer as bland as I do him. Perhaps I just need some help seeing it...

Richard, hi there and I agree that many of his subjects are mundane, but it is the way that he portrayed them that makes it work. Like many photographers only a small % of his images are great. Take this picture of the Notre Dame.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=e...%2Fatget%2Fatget_notre_dame_full.html;638;480

There is a tree in the way, (and I don’t mean that in a condescending way), or is he contrasting organic forms with man-made and making the whole composition more intriguing? The first few times I looked at Atget I didn’t get it, but you have to sit with it and look and look. Hope this helps.

 

[blansky]

I will offer only one image. The waiter's name is unrecorded.
He stood still - probably for a few minutes, maybe fascinated
with the contraption, maybe he had seen the dowdy old man
on other mornings. He could not know that we would be talking
about him today. He stands in mute testimony to all things
French, but also other small good things: to a clean shirt,
a well groomed mustache, a good job, a love of food and it's
proper presentation, but especially: a hungry and curious eye
with a capacity to see, a propensity to linger, and a joy with
what is apprehended. We can look at him and see ourselves.

View attachment 104942

-Tim

You may be entirely correct. But my warped sense of humor always finds that we may just be projecting when we put words to other people images.

An alternate theory is that the gentleman in the picture is eyeballing the nuisance with the tripod on the street as a potential problem and is deciding if he should go out and tell him to move along or lay a beating on him.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Who knows what either of them were thinking? But the point is, is that Atget made a successful psychological metaphor out of the situation;
and he repeatedly innovated new ways of looking at things well before any other photographer we know of did. Just contrast this with what almost all "art" photographers were doing around then - pictorialism! Atget virtually stuck his thumb in the eye of every extant convention.
But he certainly wasn't afraid of beauty while doing so, if that is what presented itself.

 

[DREW WILEY]

(Back form lunch)... Let's take that shopkeeper in the window. He's not a shopkeeper. He's an apparition, an anomaly to the plane of perspective, almost a nosferatu. Could have been one of Atget's window mannequins, which conversely become almost human. They're not
what they seem.

 

[cliveh]

(Back form lunch)... Let's take that shopkeeper in the window. He's not a shopkeeper. He's an apparition, an anomaly to the plane of perspective, almost a nosferatu. Could have been one of Atget's window mannequins, which conversely become almost human. They're not
what they seem.

And your point is?

 

[DREW WILEY]

My point? To simply point out, using just one image, an example of the kind of sophistication Atget put into images over and over again. This was not anything coincidental, based on chance. Any photographer today who could do this kind of thing once in his life would be lucky. Atget was a pioneer at what so-called art photographers today generally do only pretentiously, as wannabee Atget's. People here ask why he's so respected... well, a couple of visual examples have already been posted. Probably no picture by anyone alive EVER posted on APUG will come up to the standard of that first image (the reflection). It's a once-a-century kind of masterpiece. But Atget himself made many others of that caliber. It wasn't dumb luck.

 

[cliveh]

My point? To simply point out, using just one image, an example of the kind of sophistication Atget put into images over and over again. This was not anything coincidental, based on chance. Any photographer today who could do this kind of thing once in his life would be lucky. Atget was a pioneer at what so-called art photographers today generally do only pretentiously, as wannabee Atget's. People here ask why he's so respected... well, a couple of visual examples have already been posted. Probably no picture by anyone alive EVER posted on APUG will come up to the standard of that first image (the reflection). It's a once-a-century kind of masterpiece. But Atget himself made many others of that caliber. It wasn't dumb luck.

I agree, as the image in my OP is something of wonder. If I stand away from my pc and view this from about 10' away, I don't see the detail, just the wonderful composition.

 

[DREW WILEY]

There actually isn't much detail in the original - but just enough to give the exact impression or "document" of what he intended. It's also happens to be one of my very own favorite images. Good find!

 

[Richard S. (rich815)]

Thanks everyone. Your perspective and comment has had me looking at this photographer in a different way. I actually do have one of his books I got a couple years ago but didn't spend too much time with it.



I think I'm going to take a little bit more time now and look at it with a different kind of perspective after seeing what you guys have to say. And honestly a couple of photographs I already see in a different way and can appreciate with a little bit more depth. thanks again.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Just remember that the originals were relatively small contact prints taken with a very basic plate box camera having nothing but a bit of front rise and a so-so wide angle lens with a quite limited image circle, an outdated instrument even when Atget used it. But he knew this
instrument very very well. Lots of the original prints are now in poor condition due to mildew etc, and other images have been salvaged from negs likewise often in a poor state. So book images actually look better at times than the originals, but do not give quite the same impression. For instance, the "lack of detail", already mentioned, is nonexistent in the originals, because they were intended to be viewed
as small images to begin with. And his print media was itself an anachronism later in life, when his most famous images were made.
So at some point, it does help to see a least a few token originals in some museum. I thing the SFMMA has a few.