Eugene Atget was a French photographer; he was born in 1857 and died in 1927. His career bridged the 19th and 20th centuries, during which time he worked in around Paris for 35+ years. He created an “encyclopaedic, idiosyncratic lived portrait of that city on the cusp of the modern era.” In other words, he created an informative yet peculiar picture of the city of Paris, with the aim to capture the beauty of the city before it became completely modernised.

He first began his career around 1890 by hanging a shingle on a studio door in Paris, reading “Documents pour artistes” (Documents for artists). His ambition was to provide other artists with images to use as a source for their own work, including images from some of the following genres: landscapes, flowers, foregrounds for painters, and reproductions of paintings, plus many more. His entry into the field of photography coincided with the invention of dry-plate photography, which made it easier to create photographs quickly, while the rise of photomechanical reproduction allowed photographs to be distributed widely. However, despite these technological advancements, Atget used a large format view camera to capture his images in detail, and large glass plates measuring about 18 x 24 cm.

In around 1900, his interest in vieux Paris (“old Paris”) took centre stage, and Atget went on to established himself as a ‘specialist in pictures of Paris.’ His documentary vision was highly influential, especially for the Surrealists. He photographed deserted streets and stairways, street life and shop windows, which the Surrealists found beguiling and richly suggestive. Most of his images were taken at dawn, and are notable for their use of diffused light and wide views that create a sense of space and ambience.

Upon looking at Atget’s work, I have been inspired to take a slight documentary style approach to the Enigma of Time assignment. I have decided to experiment with photographing historical sites and buildings to represent time in my images and document these sites in their current, modern state, similar to Atget’s work. Unfortunately I can’t capture the sites before they became modernised like when Atget captured “old Paris,” but I will capture them in their current state which will document how they have aged with time and been preserved. One of the locations I intend to visit is the historic village of Eyam in the Derbyshire Dales, also known as the “Plague Village” because of it’s incredible backstory: in the 1600s, its unselfish villagers sealed themselves off from the outside world to prevent the deadly disease from spreading to other communities. I think photographing the village and attempting to capture the narrative of its history will be an interesting challenge and produce some effective images.

I have taken inspiration from the below images: