Eugene Atget was born in Bordeaux in 1856. He was an orphan raised my his uncle. At an early age he shipped to sea as cabin boy. As a young man, he tried to be an actor. He started in France where he was usually given unattractive roles, such as a villian. As he got older, acting started to bore him. He then turned to business in the art world. Finally he decided to be a photographer. Atget assigned himself an alluring and provoking subject, the city of Paris, the dream city of thousands of struggling, aspiring, gifted and would-be poets, painters, composers. Paris, the city of art and bridges over the Seine, of boulevards and cafes, of narrow, crooked streets and gray plane trees in the beautiful Luxembourg gardens. Atget was so devoted to his photography. He would rise early in the morning for shots and even changed his diet- I'm not sure what that has to do with photography, but he did it. Atget died in 1922, but because of a close friend, Berenice Abbott, his work was promoted in America, elevating it to recognition as art, beyond its original reputation as documentation.
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