Eugene Atget Appreciation

[cliveh]

I came across this picture the other day, which I thought was mind blowing. His sense of composition, tonal rendition and presence is just amazing. I could look at this for hours.

 

[pdeeh]

yeah, but did he use the zone system?

 

[cliveh]

yeah, but did he use the zone system?

I think not, but merely an intuitive grasp of materials and chemicals he had worked with over a lifetime (no light meter required) and contact prints from the negatives.

 

[removed account4]

clive,
you should know if he didn't use a light meter and just "winged it"
he shouldn't be apprecaited at all. it is utterly fantastic that he even
was able to get a halfway decent exposure at all, i mean early morning light
is extremely unpredictable ... and if you look at any of his other work you can tell he
had absolutely no grasp of his materials or his equipment ... he even vignetted THIS image.
you would think if he was worth his weigh in salt at least he would have had a clue.
===
in all seriousness, he is in my estimation probably one of the top 2 photographers that
ever lived, the other, another frenchman spent his time in balloons
and in catacombs. the world is richer because of atget's eyes and composition and the magic he was able
to conjure with silver and developer.
thanks clive -
john

 

[Renato Tonelli]

yeah, but did he use the zone system?

He exposed for the shadows and developed for the highlights...

 

[DREW WILEY]

The gear and products Atget used making those iconic prints later in his life were already considered anachronistic. If he were alive today, he wouldn't even own a smartphone or selfie stick. But he did relish the inherent flaws in his methodology. The difference is, he did this with eloquence,
originality, and a profound sense of composition, and not like the thousands of wannabee copycats hence. He was basically a stock photographer roaming Paris for interesting subject matter, who increasing made prints for himself. He was admired by the Surrealists, then forgotten until Berenice Abbot rediscovered his work. All the mildew and wrinkles typically seen on his actual prints was not something he intended, however. The scrawled
"documentation" and wide-angle lens vignetting was.

 

[cliveh]

The gear and products Atget used making those iconic prints later in his life were already considered anachronistic. If he were alive today, he wouldn't even own a smartphone or selfie stick. But he did relish the inherent flaws in his methodology. The difference is, he did this with eloquence,
originality, and a profound sense of composition, and not like the thousands of wannabee copycats hence. He was basically a stock photographer roaming Paris for interesting subject matter, who increasing made prints for himself. He was admired by the Surrealists, then forgotten until Berenice Abbot rediscovered his work. All the mildew and wrinkles typically seen on his actual prints was not something he intended, however. The scrawled
"documentation" and wide-angle lens vignetting was.

Well said.

 

[cliveh]

How about this one? It works for me, but not sure why.

 

[blockend]

One of my top five photographers ever since I learned of his work in the 1970s. He sold his photographs as artists source imagery and used printing out paper, really basic stuff, though I'm sure he saw it as art in its own right on some level. He often rose at dawn to capture the streets before people were about, which along with his technique and intentional vignetting, gave the photographs an unearthly dream-like quality. Fantastic stuff.

 

[Gerald C Koch]

It is a matter of being completely familiar with one's method. Ansel Adams understood this but so many on APUG chose to ignore the wisdom.

The light meter is a fairly recent invention and can be replaced by experience.

 

[HiHoSilver]

Cliveh - great thread & wonderful images. Thx for posting.

 

[cliveh]

How about this one -

 

[cliveh]

Or this -

 

[DREW WILEY]

Atget wasn't afraid of atmosphere. He used this compositionally, both to accentuate depth, but also with regard to mood and metaphor. In the latter aspect he was genius. Paris basically suffered from smog. It was called "gray light". So the contrast ratios on the film itself were probably quite predictable to him and well within the range of his contact papers. By comparison (a rather stupid comparison, but inevitable on a thread like this), AA really needed the Zone System to handle the crisp brilliancy of high altitude scenes, in which he often took the opposite tack as Atget and cut through atmosphere with strong colored filters. I do both, depending. Sometimes the work is done for me, like forest fire haze. In general, it can be quite a useful lesson to study the older masters, before panchromatic film even existed, and how they managed atmosphere using blue-sensitive films. It's easy enough just to stick a blue filter over your lens today. But Atget brought an awful lot of haunting mystique into this too, and not just air.

 

[DREW WILEY]

(... took a break to lock things up)... Anyway, Atget often used sculptures and ruins anthropomorphically, even vases, as stand in witnesses to the
scene, within it. It's like the Shining, they're not just objects, but somehow still alive, possessed, amidst either ruin or something contemplative.
That's why the Surrealists admired him. And he spatially modulates this relationship using atmosphere and receding focal planes, and the degree of intensity of black (though true black never exists in his prints). There is actually a lot going on. But of course, he made many many images where
not everything came together. The iconic ones have been sorted out among thousands of lesser images. Even Babe Ruth struck out more often than
not; but that's not why we remember him.

 

[juan]

While I've seen several references to Atget's use of Hubl paste for development, I've never seen a reference to what film (or plates) he used. Has anyone seen such a reference? Did he use blue sensitive film or was it ortho? He began photographing Paris in 1890, but many of the images in this thread were probably shot in the 20s.
Juan

 

[pdeeh]

his big problem was that he didn't keep his film in the freezer

 

[removed account4]

not sure juan
i know he photographed paris, except during ww1, from the late 1890s until the 1920s
ive been told he used glass plates but not sure if later on he used them, or just early on.
==
he was a master at creating a sense of place. photographing things so they could be remembered
with the magesty they deserved to be remembered. his portraits of the homeless and street vendors
were beautiful too. its hard to believe his negatives were dug out of the dumpster in the 30s ...
===
couldn't agree more gerald, know your stuff back and forth so it is 2nd nature, and an extension of you..

 

[Richard S. (rich815)]

I'll admit again that appreciation of Atget and his "magic" is mostly lost on me, even after buying a good book of his work and seeing some explanation about why it's supposedly so good. He's slowly growing on me though, and I'll have to say some of these shots posted by cliveh are quite nice...

 

[gone]

I agree, he was a remarkable photographer, and one who had to work w/ very difficult cameras and "film". He was very good at composition, which was probably a spinoff of his interest in painting. The photos here really don't do his work justice. There is a small book of his photographs at our library that I saw w/ excellent images, and his sense of timing and composition are wonderful. He had no exhibitions within his lifetime, made few sales on his own, and was essentially unknown when he died.

His body of work is considered by some to be less that it really is (some people even going so far as to call him a failed painter that worked in photography). Occasionally his work does exhibit problems in execution, w/ lens flare and reflections. Whether he knew about this and didn't care, or was not sure how to technically fix things is anyone's guess. I suppose, from looking at his paintings, which were workman like and showed that he understood the craft, that he was having technical problems and probably would not have shown the works that we see today if he were alive to edit them.

His paintings are not bad, and show a command of the working medium, but my guess is that he did not devote enough time to that in order to mature to his own style. Some works are clearly derivative of Cezanne, Bonnard and Degas. That's some tough company to be in with, and unless you're at the top of your game it is just going to look problematic if you follow their styles and outlooks too much. Much of what we see today are prints that were made from his glass plates after he died, much like Vivian Maier's negatives, although the work itself and the two personalities could not have been more different. He's one of my favorite photographers.

https://www.google.com/search?q=eug...=uN9zV8LbGseSmQGnrJewCA#imgrc=K6ZBOM53giMnyM:

 

[cliveh]

Interesting comments and observations. How about this one?

 

[Bob Carnie]

Clive - I like this one very atmospheric but sharp steps as well.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Obviously plates. You can see the clip impressions on prints even on his old-age shots. He wasn't a new gear freak. He called these "documents", and
leads the viewer into it, as the witness, just like that set of stairs that goes nowhere, but still pulls you up into the washed-out light (he wasn't afraid of flare either). But his greens are always very heavy, dark, so I'd speculate his plates continued to be blue-sensitive.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Momus - think you got it backwards. Degas was highly influenced by photography, not the other way around; and otherwise I don't see any evidence of contemporaneous painting genres significantly influencing Atget, although he personally interacted with painters. His own little paintings were wretched attempts at retro-Impressionism, already in the rear view mirror, not current trends. A "fine print" maker Atget was not. In fact, a lot of images look a lot more luminescent, crisp, and contrasty in high-quality book restored fashion than in the originals. That wasn't his goal. But many of what you term his technical "flaws" were deliberate contributions to the composition, and later in life, got quite sophisticated. All one has to do is compare all the wannabee Atget clones from the 70's, mostly color photographers, who tried to copy the quirky points but without the comprehensive feel - "creative", interesting, got their moment in the sun - but also pretentious, copycattish, and superficial. He's a hard act to follow.

 

[removed account4]

Obviously plates. You can see the clip impressions on prints even on his old-age shots. He wasn't a new gear freak. He called these "documents", and
leads the viewer into it, as the witness, just like that set of stairs that goes nowhere, but still pulls you up into the washed-out light (he wasn't afraid of flare either). But his greens are always very heavy, dark, so I'd speculate his plates continued to be blue-sensitive.

they were documents, he was hired to DOCUMENT the city of old paris before it was changed.
( very much the same way (the bechers documented water towers, or) in the usa a HABS/HAER/HALS photographer
documents significant sites and structures ... and for the same reason, as a record/document for an archive ( LOC ).