Robert Doisneau
By: July • Essay • 746 Words • December 13, 2009 • 2,715 Views
Essay title: Robert Doisneau
Robert Doisneau
(1912-1994)
Robert Doisneau is most certainly one of the greatest photographers of the last century.
All of his photographs represent him as a person, his personality and his nationality. Most of his
work is of him taking pictures of real life events and real people performing them. A French
photographer living in Paris he captures some very exciting and breathtaking moments. With the
city as a canvas he wandered through it taking pictures of the beautiful city backdrop and the
everyday people that live there. It is now question that Mr. Doisneau is one of the most
recognized and also famous photographers to arise out of Paris France.
Robert Doisneau was born on April 14, 1912 in Gentilly, This was a suburb of Paris
witch was also one of the most densely populated area with people. With so many people
crammed into such a little town there was not much money to be passed around for jobs either.
Robert was not the smartest kid when it came to school, so at the age of thirteen he entered into a
trade school. This is the place where he truly experienced the true meaning of art and
photography. The school that he attended was also quite poor and had limited classes, but the one
he enjoyed the most was his study of photography. Doisneau started his profecion in 1934 and
later on in 1939 became an independent photojournalist. With World War Two right at Frances
back door he was called to war. With is profecion as a photographer the army used him for
spying and other useful traits.
Not that he did not takes some great shots during
that war, some of his best were after.
Once the war was over he was then out of a job, so resorted to a lot of freelance work. With him
now living in the heart of Paris he sold a lot of his work to Life and other very important
magasines. What people wanted to see was other comon people in common situation, but in
different parts of the world, and that is exactly what Doisneau brought to the photo. Still not well
known he signed with a small Magasine/modeling company called Vogue. He started with them
and in 1948 is when his work of fashion photography really took off. Even though he was
considerd high society, he did not want to get away from the everyday common people of paris.
Today people look at his photographs and know Paris France when they see them. He saw his job
as to capture parts of his life as they pass by freely.
The photo I chose to critique was called Kiss by the Hotel de Ville. I was surfing the net
for some of the more famous photographers of the 19th century, Wile I didn’t know his name this
picture drew me