Impulse

I am proud to be a dis­ci­ple of Robert Doisneau. His work has inspired my pho­tog­ra­phy for the last five years. After one par­tic­u­larly frus­trat­ing day shoot­ing in Paris, I turned to a photo of Doisneau I hap­pened to have with me and asked, “Robert, I don’t know what to do. Help me.” We had a lovely con­ver­sa­tion and over the next ten days, I shot my Tuilleries port­fo­lio. (It should not sur­prise you that Amarante, the crazy old man who talks to saints in The Milagro Beanfield War, is one of my favorite lit­er­ary fig­ures). Doisneau’s view of the world is whim­si­cal and opti­mistic. He loves peo­ple, por­tray­ing their every­day lives with dig­nity and respect. His work moti­vated me to return to pho­tog­ra­phy, so it’s fit­ting that he’s the first artist I cover in my Cool Art series.

Doisneau was one of the great French reportage pho­tog­ra­phers of the 40’s & 50’s that included Henri Cartier-Bresson, André Kértsz, Brassaï, Edouard Boubat, and Willy Ronis. Unlike those pho­to­jour­nal­ists, Doisneau rarely left Paris, choos­ing instead to stay at home and pho­to­graph his native city. The result is a body of work that cap­tures Paris in lov­ing detail. The French adore Doisneau; his pho­tos are all over every post card and guide book in the city. In fact, main­stream book­stores in Paris which hardly car­ried pho­tog­ra­phy often car­ried a whole shelf of Doisneau’s books.
Doisneau’s whim­si­cal eye caught my atten­tion first. Doisneau is amused by peo­ple (as I am). He sees the amus­ing way peo­ple react to sit­u­a­tions (as in “The Sidelong Glance”), or the way they uncon­sciously arrange them­selves in humor­ous jux­ta­po­si­tions. A few pho­tos are pre­med­i­tated, like the por­trait of Picasso in his kitchen, but most are com­pletely spon­ta­neous. “The Sidelong Glance”, one of my favorites, is a mix­ture of both. According to Hamilton’s biog­ra­phy of Doisneau, a friend left Doisneau in charge of his shop. Doisneau noticed the nude paint­ing in the win­dow, set up the cam­era, and waited for some­thing to hap­pen. Artificial? A bit. Spontaneous? A bit. A great way to cap­ture the nat­u­rally humor­ous way peo­ple act? Absolutely.
Doisneau didn’t just cap­ture peo­ple being silly. He recorded the quiet moments of joy or despair of ordi­nary peo­ple liv­ing their lives. The book Rue Jacques Prévert is a great col­lec­tion of these pho­tos. A street cleaner fix­ing his broom, a fac­tory worker feed­ing his child, fish­er­men along the Seine, mar­kets, cou­ples kiss­ing, the streets at night. Doisneau walked all over Paris with cohorts Jacques Prévert and Robert Giraud pho­tograph­ing the peo­ple and places they encoun­tered. Doisneau stops time, cap­tur­ing lit­tle gems of fleet­ing moments that oth­er­wise would have passed by unno­ticed. He does so in a way that feels like I’m a wel­come par­tic­i­pant in the scene.
Doisneau always showed great com­pas­sion for the peo­ple he pho­tographed. It did not mat­ter if they were beg­gars or busi­ness­men, Doisneau por­trayed peo­ple with dig­nity and respect. This is espe­cially true of chil­dren. Doisneau was great at cap­tur­ing the spon­tane­ity and play­ful­ness of chil­dren with­out the drippy sen­ti­men­tal­ity that other pho­tog­ra­phers have poured over their pho­tos. In Doisneau’s pho­tos, kids joke around, play, walk on their hands, always enjoy­ing life.
Why do I like Doisneau’s work? Doisneau’s view of the world is one of amuse­ment, human dig­nity, and hope. It’s a point of view that res­onates with me deeply, reflect­ing my own val­ues and the humor I’ve seen in the world. But: it’s a view I’ve lost. Politics, world events, and burnout at my old job have hard­ened me; made me cyn­i­cal. Voilà, Doisneau — a pho­tog­ra­pher who, dur­ing the occu­pa­tion of Paris, lit­er­ally had to man­u­fac­ture his own film to scrape enough of a liv­ing to feed his fam­ily. Despite all that, the world in his books con­tinue to be full of hope, and faith in the good­ness in peo­ple. I want to see the world with that opti­mism once again.
I guess it’s a state­ment on the man him­self, who I very much admire. Here is my favorite Doisneau story:
The concierge in Doisneau’s build­ing, Paul Barabé, was an eager assis­tant to Doisneau through much of the photographer’s post-war career, help­ing in the dark­room, build­ing props, and act­ing as a model. Barabé grew old as we all do and even­tu­ally became too weak to be able to carry out his duties as concierge, namely bring­ing out the building’s trash. Doisneau, know­ing that Barabé would loose his job and thus his home if any­one in the build­ing found out, snuck out each morn­ing to take out the building’s trash unno­ticed. He con­tin­ued to do this for his friend for the rest of Barabé’s life.
Books

• Robert Doisneau: A Photographer’s Life, by Peter Hamilton. The defin­i­tive biography
• Rue Jacques Prévert, by Robert Doisneau (poetry by Jacques Prévert).
• Un Certain, by Robert Doisneau.
• Doisneau, Peter Hamilton.
• Three Seconds of Eternity, by Robert Doisneau.
• Ballade pour Violoncelle et Chambre Noir, by Robert Doisneau with Maurice Bacquet. I’ve never seen this book, but dream about find­ing it some­day, prob­a­bly in a dusty used bookstore.

Links

• Interview with Doisneau by Frank Horvat
• Masters of Photography: Robert Doisneau
• Staley Wise Gallery
• robertdoisneau.com
• Rapho photo agency

Related posts:

1. CoolArt: Ron Hammond