Atget and Musée Carnavalet

Atget's 39, rue de la Bûchere, 1911

My 39, rue de la Bûchere, 2012

I always jump at the chance to see an Atget exhibit. I love vintage street photography, which is, well, pretty much what defines Atget.

Eugène Atget was the original street photographer. Throughout his career, he took thousands of photos of Paris, capturing its characters, architecture and street scenes. The current exhibit at the Carnavalet displays 230 prints created in Paris between 1898 and 1927. Through images of streets, gardens, quays, storefronts and residents, it’s fascinating to see how Atget’s eye evolved. Many of the buildings and public spaces Atget captured were demolished soon afterward to make way for the shiny new structures that were part of that era’s gentrification wave.

Atget was born in 1857. He grew up in Bordeaux and, after a stint in the merchant navy, moved to Paris to enroll in acting school. Although he was expelled from school, he ended up performing with a traveling theatre group.

Marchand abat-jours (Lampshade Peddler)

When Atget’s vocal cords gave out at age 40, he became a professional photographer. He was the equivalent of a modern-day commercial photographer, shooting images from which painters, architects and stage-designers would work.

You can recognize an Atget by the long exposures, wide views and feeling of emptiness (due to his early-morning shooting habits). Atget used a large-format wooden bellows camera, which was already outdated and cumbersome. The images were exposed and developed as 18×24 cm dry glass plates (on display).

Berenice Abbott discovered Atget in 1925 and worked her best PR for him, publishing and exhibiting his images outside of France. Man Ray, Matisse and Picasso were also fans.

The rest of the museum (140 rooms total) is worth seeing as well, as it provides a fascinating history of Paris from its origins through the belle époque. The museum is housed in the 16th century Hôtel Carnavalet, one of the finest examples of Renaissance architecture in town.