Essential Guide to Brassaï's Paris Photography: What You Need to Know About His Iconic Shots Before Visiting

Photographing the City of Lights using a Master Photographer's Methods

It is one of the hundreds of Paris outdoor cafes that can be caught on camera. Photo by Matthew Bamberg

“I've always had a horror of specialization in any one medium. That is why I have constantly changed my medium of expression —photo, drawing, cinema, writing, theater decor, sculpture, engraving.”—Brassaï

Brassaï was more than a photographer. Born at the dawn of the Twentieth Century, he was an artist of all trades. He engaged in other creative pursuits and ran the span of photography genres from gritty street photography at night to gorgeous daytime landscapes of the French countryside.

Taking Brassaï’s photography and emulating it digitally doesn’t do this excellent photographer justice. But, heck, he brought ideas to those outside his generation that any photographer can create compelling subjects, objects, composition, perspective, light,…