Robert Doisneau

[snusmumriken]

Agreed that the context and text supporting the photo(s) can influence their meaning. But let's start with the basic picture first. Don't add in or delete significant items, as Sirius said.

But the OP was specifically interested in the choice of subject matter, not the style of photography.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

But the OP was specifically interested in the choice of subject matter, not the style of photography.

I was responding to Alex's post.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Agreed that the context and text supporting the photo(s) can influence their meaning. But let's start with the basic picture first. Don't add in or delete significant items, as Sirius said.

That subject has been pretty much exhausted in another recent thread.

Back to Doisneau.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

@CMoore : here are some of Doisneau's photographs taken during the war. They illustrate much more what you were expecting. It's obvious that post-war he became more interested in being a witness to the positive and optimistic atmosphere that followed the difficult 39-45 events.

Robert Doisneau : La guerre 1939-45 - L'Œil de la Photographie Magazine

Mobilisé en 1939, Doisneau retrouve à son retour un Paris occupé où il va user de mille expédients pour subvenir à ces besoins. La presse étant quasi inexistante, il réalise quelques publicités, assure une série de portraits de scientifiques à la demande de Maximilien Vox. Son activité est...

loeildelaphotographie.com

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Short article (in French) about Doisneau's trip to Alsace immediately after the war ended.

L’étonnant regard de Robert Doisneau sur l’Alsace de 1945

A l’occasion de la réédition de l’album de photos de Robert Doisneau « Un voyage en Alsace – 1945 », la fille du photographe évoque l’inhabituel regard de son père sur l’Alsace au sortir de la seconde guerre mondiale.

france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr

This quote by his daughter about Doisneau not wanting to capture the physical or psycological scars left by the war is interesting: « Mon père semble avoir voulu volontairement détourner son objectif des stygmates de la guerre au profit de la belle nature, du folklore, du côté paisible de cette région et de sa beauté. »

 

[mcfitz]

@CMoore : here are some of Doisneau's photographs taken during the war. They illustrate much more what you were expecting. It's obvious that post-war he became more interested in being a witness to the positive and optimistic atmosphere that followed the difficult 39-45 events.

Robert Doisneau : La guerre 1939-45 - L'Œil de la Photographie Magazine

Mobilisé en 1939, Doisneau retrouve à son retour un Paris occupé où il va user de mille expédients pour subvenir à ces besoins. La presse étant quasi inexistante, il réalise quelques publicités, assure une série de portraits de scientifiques à la demande de Maximilien Vox. Son activité est...

loeildelaphotographie.com

thank you for the link and the photos. Here's a translation of the text beneath them, useful, IMO, to replace in context the discussion and the OP's question. This fills in information that MIGHT be helpful in clarifying some of the speculation voiced.

"Mobilised in 1939, Doisneau finds on his return an occupied Paris where he will use a thousand expedients to provide for these needs. The press being almost non-existent, he makes some advertisements, ensures a series of portraits of scientists at the request of Maximilien Vox. His activity is also underground since he manufactures, throughout these dark years, false papers for the Resistance. Nevertheless, he managed to illustrate some aspects of daily life: rationing, queues in front of shops, air alerts. Among these images that have become exceptional documents is the photograph of the fallen Horse (1942), which he considers a metaphor for the country's situation.

In August 1944, when the Parisian insurrection broke out, Robert Doisneau was taken by a real frenzy of photographs. It's a new start. Travelling Paris by bicycle, he made an impressive series of shots that have become classics. Portraits of women, children, men in the euphoria of regained freedom. Little violence in these abundantly published images but already a lot of tenderness and empathy for his fellow human beings.

Doisneau also realises for Pierre Betz, publisher of Le Point magazine, a series of images with an exceptional atmosphere on the clandestine press under the Occupation.

This period saw Robert Doisneau enter a profession that was close to his heart."

 

[Dali]

I more or less agree with antonio_b comments. In France, the "elite" is too often made up of traitors to the nation ready to sell themselves to foreign influences, far, very far from what the rest of the population lives and thinks.

 

[snusmumriken]

Short article (in French) about Doisneau's trip to Alsace immediately after the war ended.

L’étonnant regard de Robert Doisneau sur l’Alsace de 1945

A l’occasion de la réédition de l’album de photos de Robert Doisneau « Un voyage en Alsace – 1945 », la fille du photographe évoque l’inhabituel regard de son père sur l’Alsace au sortir de la seconde guerre mondiale.

france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr

This quote by his daughter about Doisneau not wanting to capture the physical or psycological scars left by the war is interesting: « Mon père semble avoir voulu volontairement détourner son objectif des stygmates de la guerre au profit de la belle nature, du folklore, du côté paisible de cette région et de sa beauté. »

Thanks for all these really interesting links and info, also to @Daniela. As a very poor French speaker I would have found it difficult to discover them for myself.

 

[GregY]

HCB earlier quote about Adams and Weston never rang more true

Well they were a continent away from the wars.

 

[GregY]

I more or less agree with antonio_b comments. In France, the "elite" is too often made up of traitors to the nation ready to sell themselves to foreign influences, far, very far from what the rest of the population lives and thinks.

Do you think the élite of France differ in that respect from those of other countries?

I would also agree more with korak's statement referring to antonio-b's post:

"It comes across a somewhat easy and lazy to (dis)qualify a city's population under exceptional circumstances from the comfortable armchair 70 years after the fact and thousands of miles away."

 

[Dali]

Do you think the élite of France differ in that respect from those of other countries?

I don't know and whatever my answer is, it does not change what is happened there for the last 100 years.

 

[GregY]

I don't know and whatever my answer is, it does not change what is happened there for the last 100 years.

......or what has happened or is happening in other places.... you know... those who live in glass houses....etc.

 

[Dali]

Well, I don't speak of what I don't know. After spending 40 years in France, I know a little about the country and its history.

If you want to know what was the elite's state of mind while the german occupation (1940-1944), read Maurice Garcon's journal , volume 2 (1939-1945). You shall discover some facts there.

 

[CMoore]

Well they were a continent away from the wars.

I thought he said that prewar.
Regardless, there was a BAD Finance Crash in 1929. It was worldwide.
There was PLENTY of misery and strife to go around.
When HCB said that, the USA was stringing up black people by the dozens every year. The crimes were super heinous, like not yielding fast enough when a white person approached on a walkway, or growing more corn than a near-by white neighbor.
Plenty of Americans went to Spain to fight in their civil war, long before Germany invaded Poland.
So................... with all that is going on in THE WORLD, Adams and Weston are taking pictures of F'ing rocks and trees.

 

[GregY]

I thought he said that prewar.
Regardless, there was a BAD Finance Crash in 1929. It was worldwide.
There was PLENTY of misery and strife to go around.
When HCB said that, the USA was stringing up black people by the dozens every year. The crimes were super heinous, like not yielding fast enough when a white person approached on a walkway, or growing more corn than a near-by white neighbor.
Plenty of Americans went to Spain to fight in their civil war, long before Germany invaded Poland.
So................... with all that is going on in THE WORLD, Adams and Weston are taking pictures of F'ing rocks and trees.

CM, Of course there was misery an injustice everywhere..but you said it yourself "plenty of Americans went to Spain."....... the actual fighting and bombing was elsewhere. Do you think a North American artist could have painted Guernica ?
Nobody knows what makes artists choose what they paint or photograph, but neither Adams nor Weston IMO could be characterized as photojournalists. HCB always struck me as a socially inquisitive photographer/photojournalist.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I thought he said that prewar.
Regardless, there was a BAD Finance Crash in 1929. It was worldwide.
There was PLENTY of misery and strife to go around.
When HCB said that, the USA was stringing up black people by the dozens every year. The crimes were super heinous, like not yielding fast enough when a white person approached on a walkway, or growing more corn than a near-by white neighbor.
Plenty of Americans went to Spain to fight in their civil war, long before Germany invaded Poland.
So................... with all that is going on in THE WORLD, Adams and Weston are taking pictures of F'ing rocks and trees.

Not every photographer is a photojournalist any more than romance novelists should report the news.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

I thought he said that prewar.
Regardless, there was a BAD Finance Crash in 1929. It was worldwide.
There was PLENTY of misery and strife to go around.
When HCB said that, the USA was stringing up black people by the dozens every year. The crimes were super heinous, like not yielding fast enough when a white person approached on a walkway, or growing more corn than a near-by white neighbor.
Plenty of Americans went to Spain to fight in their civil war, long before Germany invaded Poland.
So................... with all that is going on in THE WORLD, Adams and Weston are taking pictures of F'ing rocks and trees.

I believe the quote is: "The world is going to pieces and people like Adams and Weston are photographing rocks!" and it's supposed to have been said in the 30s, during the Great Depression, maybe in 1935 during his stay in New York, which would be about the only time he could have been in close contact with prints by either Weston or Adams. This would make the quote a bit ironic since at that time he was almost more invested in film making than in photography. In that, though, he was mentored by Paul Strand, so, considering that influence, the quote would make sense.

That said. I've never seen the source of this quote, nobody has been able to point to me the actual interview or moment where and when it has been said, it's not mentioned in Assouline's biography, and so I always had my doubts about it.

Not every photographer is a photojournalist any more than romance novelists should report the news.

Cartier-Bresson was a photojournalist, although he actually considered himself a "photo-surrealist". Robert Capa told him not to mention that because, according to Capa, people then wouldn't take him seriously.

I don't think Doisneau ever considered himself a photojournalist, even though his works were published in journals and magazines. I think he was essentially interested in capturing the good side of human nature.