A selection of images from the Robert Doisneau Retrospective at the Château de Malbrouck in 2011.
La Pause, Mine de Giraumont Meurthe et Moselle, 1960 © Atelier Robert Doisneau courtesy of GAMMA-RAPHO
The photographer must be absorbent–like a blotter, allow himself to be permeated by the poetic moment…. His technique should be like an animal function…he should act automatically.
-Robert Doisneau
Baiser Blotto, 1950 © Atelier Robert Doisneau courtesy of GAMMA-RAPHO Agency
The marvels of daily life are exciting; no movie director can arrange the unexpected that you find in the street.
-Robert Doisneau
Be Bop en cave, Saint-Germain-des-prés, 1951 © Atelier Robert Doisneau courtesy of GAMMA-RAPHO Agency
Chance is the one thing you can’t buy. You have to pay for it and you have to pay for it with your life, spending a lot of time, you pay for it with time, not the wasting of time but the spending of time.
-Robert Doisneau
Drapé de Grès, Paris, 1955 © Atelier Robert Doisneau courtesy of GAMMA-RAPHO Agency
If I knew how to take a good photograph, I’d do it every time.
-Robert Doisneau
Jacques Prevert au gueridon, 1955 © Atelier Robert Doisneau courtesy of GAMMA-RAPHO Agency
I like people for their weaknesses and faults. I get on well with ordinary people. We talk. We start with the weather, and little by little we get to the important things. When I photograph them it is not as if I were examining them with a magnifying class, like a cold and scientific observer. It’s very brotherly. And it’s better, isn’t it, to shed some light on those people who are never in the limelight.
-Robert Doisneau
Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville, 1950 © Atelier Robert Doisneau courtesy of GAMMA-RAPHO Agency
You’ve got to struggle against the pollution of intelligence in order to become an animal with very sharp instincts – a sort of intuitive medium – so that to photograph becomes a magical act, and slowly other more suggestive images begin to appear behind the visible image, for which the photographer cannot be held responsible.
-Robert Doisneau
Les pains de Picasso, Vallauris, 1952 © Atelier Robert Doisneau courtesy of GAMMA-RAPHO Agency
If you take photographs, don’t speak, don’t write, don’t analyse yourself, and don’t answer any questions.
-Robert Doisneau
Tir à l'oxygène liquide. Transport des cartouches, Mine de Murville, Meurthe et Moselle, 1960 © Atelier Robert Doisneau courtesy of GAMMA-RAPHO Agency
A hundredth of a second here, a hundredth of a second there — even if you put them end to end, they still only add up to one, two, perhaps three seconds, snatched from eternity.
-Robert Doisneau
