A Salute to the Masters: Rugby (A Tribute to Robert Doisneau)

This is a tribute to one of the most famous French social and street photographers, Robert Doisneau. During his life he was able to capture many little moments of everyday Parisian life with humanity and grace. His photos, full of poetry and humor, tell the ordinary life in the suburbs of the big French capital, away from the richest central areas of the city. Read more after the jump!

This is a tribute to one of the most important social photographers, Robert Doisneau (1912 – 1994). This great master—who participated in in the 1951 MoMA exhibition with Izis Bidermanas, Brassaï, Willy Ronis, and Henry Cartier-Bresson —spent his whole life trying to grasp ordinary gestures of ordinary people, allowing us to discover in his photographs the social life of Paris and sharing with us his pleasure of discovery as he walked through the city streets in the company of his camera.

Born in 1912 in Gentilly, a suburb in Paris, Doisneau was fifteen when he learned engraving and lithography at the Estienne School, where he graduated in 1929. Here, he had his first contact with the artistic world. He started to photograph at the age of 16 and began his professional career in 1931. At this time, he met the photographer, sculptor, and draftsman André Vigneau. Later, Doisneau became his photo assistant. In those years he got to know important artists like Jaques Prevert and Man Ray, thereby getting in touch with the top representatives of the surrealist movement.

On September 25, 1932, Doisneau got his first success when his series of photos taken at a Parisian flea market was published in the newspaper, The Excelsior. In 1934 he was hired by the automaker Renault as official photographer. There he discovered the world of the workers, full of dignity and solidarity, as well as different images of hard work. However, the strict rules of the company were tight for him. He was dismissed in 1939 because of repeated delays in the workplace. Maybe it was his lack of discipline that allowed him to make the leap from being a simple worker to a great artist.

After his dismissal Doisneau was hired by Charles Rado of the Rapho photographic agency. He traveled throughout France in search of picture stories. During the Nazi occupation of Paris he took few photos because of the high cost of film and a ban on taking pictures outdoors. In this period he collaborated with some French anti-Nazi movements and produced false documents for them.

Many of his most memorable photographs were taken after 1945, in the Parisian post-war euphoria. In this period he worked frantically to document the liberation of the city. He returned to freelance photography, working for LIFE and other international magazines. After a brief cooperation with the Alliance Photo Agency he rejoined the Rapho agency in 1946, where he remained throughout his working life. Many of his images are characterized by a brilliant and refined sense of humor which is rarely found in the work of other photographers (but it is also present, for example, in the works of Elliott Erwitt). His portfolio may be viewed in the Robert Doisneau Atelier.

Doisneau’s sports pictures are a little surreal, sometimes grotesque, and always tinged with a subtle humor. For this tribute, I was inspired by a couple of his photos from the world of rugby, my favorite sport. This photo shows a player before the game while this one shows the players on the ground, exhausted after the match.

And as a tribute to his words, I write:

The world I was trying to present was one where I would feel good, where people would be friendly, where I could find the tenderness I longed for. My photos were like a proof that such a world could exist. I chose a series of images taken in my city Como, where a young rugby team was present in the third division of the Italian championship. In all these images I represented the After-match time, when the winning team takes sides in the field to applaud the losers, and all the players get together to eat and drink in sincere friendship.

A Salute to the Masters is a series dedicated to great photographers that I like. I posted other tributes for Walker Evans, Lee Friedlander, Helen Levitt, Ernst Haas, Stephen Shore, Gabriele Basilico, Robert Adams, Thomas Struth, J.H. Lartigue, Elliott Erwitt, Robert Frank, Gianni Berengo Gardin, André Kertész, Willy Ronis, Brassaï, Rodchenko, Dan Graham, Henry Grant, William Eggleston, Dennis Stock, Juergen Teller, Martin Parr, Peter Mitchell, Mario Giacomelli, David Burnett, Michael Williamson, Bernard Cahier, Harry Gruyaert, Bruno Barbey, Paul Strand, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Lothar Rübelt, David Goldblatt, Henry Cartier-Bresson, Raymond Depardon, Aaron Siskind, Mario de Biasi, Sabine Weiss, Jack Delano, Bill Eppridge, Édouard Boubat and Izis Bidermanas. I especially love street photography and urban architectural photography.

written by sirio174 on 2015-06-06 #lifestyle #sports #italy #rugby #como #robert-doisneau #regular-contributor #rugby-como #a-salute-to-the-masters