"The camera is the least important element in photography"
The beauty held within architecture
"I have assembled photographic glass negatives...in all the old streets of old Paris...The old mansions, historic or interesting houses...I can say that I possess the whole of Old Paris"-Eugene Atget
The beauty of architecture is a piece of art in its own way. And how it has changed through the centuries. Architecture is truly a remarkable aspect of history. If we go to the 1800s, a famous French photographer, Eugène Atget, who photographed Paris in the early 1800s, before it got modernised. His work can be described as rather meticulous, documentary records and strangely poetic, even surreal, and artistic. His images meticulously documented the Parisian streets, architecture, and street life at a time when the city was undergoing rapid modernisation. Atget was known for keeping an eye out for architectural details, capturing the city's complex history and feel. When Atget became a professional photographer, he supplied documents for artists. Studies for painters, architects, and stage designers. One famous piece of his was the “old Paris” series- it was the central focus of Atget’s career, capturing the architecture and character of Paris before its complete modernisation during the Haussmann renovation. He documented Paris to capture the city’s vanishing heritage.
If we talk about form, this is an old, empty street of Paris in the 1800s. This photograph was primarily taken to showcase the disappearing architecture of ‘old Paris’. Everything in this photograph is arranged to depict the forgotten streets of Paris, before they were reconstructed, and what we lost. This was the Parisian street, everything is shown as rather empty with not even a single child, man or woman roaming around, almost like a quiet atmosphere is portrayed, highlighting the calm, empty streets back in those days, just before everything was gone due to modernisation. The building's details are seen as rather decrepit and historical, helping portray the ‘old city’. Along with this, the colour scheme in the photograph is shown in sepia or violet brown, contrasting well with the time these photographs were shot, with a subtle kind of look. If we have a closer look at the building, they all mostly have a similar shape and size, having a rather interrelated sequence. We can see semi-detached houses; they are connected but not entirely the same kind of design, which is what makes it unique and different from today. The overall street is shown as clean, showing how Paris was well taken care of back then. Overall, this photograph shows a lot about the old city of Paris, the quiet streets, and the old buildings.
The overall point of Eugene Atget’s work was to capture the vanishing architecture of Paris as time progressed, a time came where these places could only be seen in Photographs like today, signifying the importance of Atget’s photographs of Paris, as if these weren’t made, we couldn’t even imagine how Paris looked back in that time.
The process of creating these masterpieces was made using a large, heavy, wooden view camera with bellows, a tripod and large glass negatives. Showing how effort was put behind taking these photographs. He captured images onto 18 x 24 cm gelatin-silver glass plates and then developed his own prints using a printing-out method on albumen or gelatin-silver paper. His process was traditional and physically demanding, resulting in long exposure times that sometimes ended up creating blurry figures showing how difficult it was to make these look presentable, but Atget still managed to do it.
Eugene Atget’s empty street photograph conveys a mood that is rather nostalgic, mysterious, and dreamlike. Almost creates a strange kind of atmosphere. Portraying it as something peaceful, but also has a depressing, miserable background to it, as the streets remain empty with no laughter, no kids playing, just pure emptiness. In the end just made me feel more curious about what was really going on at that time, which resulted in such eerie, lifeless streets.
In context, this photograph was created by Eugène Atget, a French photographer. On the Parisian street of Paris in the 1800s, he was motivated to document “old Paris” before it was permanently altered by modernisation projects. This inherent purpose infuses his work with a strong sense of historical preservation and a longing for a bygone era. And with the uncanny emptiness and poetic tension between reality and the dreamlike quality of his images interprets a mysterious and intriguing mood.
"A good photograph is like a good hound dog, dumb, but eloquent"
-Eugene Atget
In the photograph, we can see the empty streets of Paris, almost as if the buildings are also empty, a lifeless photograph, quiet streets with not even a single person on the street. This links with Atget's work of the ‘old city’ to portray the disappearing architecture of Paris. The photograph is shown in a black and white colour scheme, which matches the time these were taken. The building mostly has the same kind of shapes. The overall structure of the building is pleasing to look at as a whole.
The reason these photographs were taken was to show the way Paris used to look like before all this was restructured, and this all was lost. All this was done so that Paris, before modernisation, could be remembered and not forgotten entirely. Also, so individuals knew that Paris didn’t always look like the way they see it today.
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The process by which Atget got pictures with no people in them was that he took photographs early in the morning, capturing the city when it was still asleep and empty. This allowed him to document the architecture and street life without the disruption of crowds. His choice of early morning light was crucial for his goal of documenting architecture and creating a visual record of the city before it was modernised, which he believed would be impossible in the busy midday sun.
The photographs show a peaceful atmosphere as you get in the early morning. Showing a quiet place with no loud noise to spoil your mood, just somewhere your mind can feel at peace.
In context, the overall reason for these photos is to show people now the beauty Paris once held back, which remains today, but many of these architectural designs are lost due to modernisation.
Another photographer who was American, Joel Meyerowitz, offers an idea of what photography is like today, with a passion for capturing “the unspoken,” focusing on feelings, energy, discovery, and risk within a frame rather than just tangible objects, which is quite intriguing. He was well known for his magnificent photographs of Paris's architecture and streets, which painters, architects, and stage designers used to view photography as a tool for documentation with a deep artistic sensibility.
“Great photography is about depth of feeling, not depth of field”-Joel Meyerowitz
“Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still”, as said by Joel Meyerowitz, who had his own way of viewing photography, showing it in a way of depicting life rather than just a so-called ‘photo’. Architecture, one of his pieces, is unique, highlighting a lot in just one photo.
Meyerowitz's photographic focus has evolved from documenting fleeting moments to creating ‘field photographs’ that capture the broader energy and relationship within a scene.
Berenice Abbot, in her striking black-and-white photographs, captured the urban landscapes and citizens of early 20th-century cities. Influenced by Eugène Atget’s methodical documentation of a modernising Paris in the 1920s, Abbott is best known for her photographs of New York City, which she captured from both high bird’s-eye angles and low street-level viewpoints. Throughout the 1930s, Abbot captured the city’s transition to modernity, particularly in her seminal series “Changing New York” (1935–39), which she shot for the federal Works Progress Administration. Abbott’s frames belong in the collections of the Museum of the City of New York, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art, among other institutions.
One of Berenice Abbott's most famous pieces was the “Flatiron Building (1938)” A dramatic im-age that emphasizes the building’s distinct wedge shape from a low, ground-level perspective. The view exaggerates the skyscraper’s height and unique form, and the “Pennsylvania Station (1936)”, a photograph of the original Pennsylvania Station, which was demolished in 1962. Ab-bott’s work documented the building’s grand architecture before it was lost to modernization. She documented many architectural buildings before everything was modernised, having a link to Eugene Atget's idea of capturing Paris before it all changed due to modernisation.
“It isn’t just that you think the city is beautiful. It’s that the city is very interesting. Everything in it has been built by man. It expresses people more than people themselves"-
Berenice Abbott
Abbott believed that photographing buildings was a way of documenting a city’s human history.
“the city is full of every period, every epoch. Everything there comes out of the human gut”.
, Ezra Stoller’s photography of Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater is iconic, with his images shaping public perception of the building and becoming a fundamental contribution to architectural history. Stoller was known for his careful attention to lighting, line, and form, and he captured Fallingwater in a way that emphasises its organic connection to its natural surroundings, often at the best times of day for capturing shape and shadow.
This is just an exploration of Stoller’s photographs of Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic Fallingwater residence. This showcases Stoller’s ability to capture the beauty and innovation of Wright’s work, providing a valuable resource for photographers looking to hone their skills in architectural photography. Like Berenice Abbot, Stroller is also a well-known architectural photographer, and his pieces of work can be useful.
"His work was all about clarity. Each image was composed very meticulously... He was very aware of every detail. Composition was the key and everything was considered and arranged, and rushing was never a part of it"
-Ezra Stroller