Artist Research week 3 - Brassai 

Born in 1899, in Brassó, Austria-Hungary, Brassaï was a photographer, poet, and sculptor. In 1924 he settled in Paris, where he became acquainted with Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, and Salvador Dalí. In the 1930s he became known for his dramatic photographs of Paris nightlife. Books of his photographs, including Paris After Dark (1933) and Pleasures of Paris (1935), brought him international fame.

Brassaï became interested in photography as a way to record encounters on his nightly walks through the streets of Paris. He enjoyed these long strolls after dark and began carrying a camera and tripod in 1929. Two years later, he compiled some of these photographs in a book entitled Paris de nuit (Paris by night). It was a stunning collection of black and white images that juxtaposed luminous, dreamlike nightscapes with contemporary documentary images of the nighttime’s denizens. It was a technical marvel as well, for he was one of the first photographers to shoot extensively at night.

"Night does not show things, it suggests them. It disturbs and surprises us with its strangeness."

In an era of slow lenses and even slower film, few photographers ventured out after dark. Brassï relished the darkness and by trial and error learned to get the night shots he was after. He invented ingenious tricks to help him, like gauging extended exposure times by how long it took for him to smoke a Gauloises. At the end of his night’s shooting, he would return to his room at the Hôtel des Terrasses. Drawing the curtains, he turned the small space into a darkroom in which he would process his negatives and make prints. These prints were remarkable because of the richness of the darkness in them.

Using his training as a painter, Brassaï framed his shots so that small areas of light pierced large areas of blacks and shadows. Light reflected in wet streets and diffused by fog, would define shapes within the dark.  This contrast gave his printed images richness and depth and he called these prints his "little boxes of night." For interior photographs like his café shots, he worked with an assistant who prepared a flash powder gun and a reflecting screen, while Brassaï chatted up and posed his subjects. The exploding flash powder produced a softer light than flashbulbs, giving the pictures their distinctive lighting. However, these powder explosions were so bright and loud that Picasso nicknamed Brassaï "the Terrorist."

Brassaï once summed up his photography by saying:

 "Basically, my work has been one long reportage on human life."