Posted by Tania Kindersley.
To all my French readers: Joyeaux Quatorze Juillet.
Je vous souhaite une très belle journée.
In homage to La Belle France (do actual French people ever use that phrase?) I give you some of my most beloved French photographers.
The Daddy, Cartier-Bresson:
Lartigue, with one of my favourite photographs of all time:
Doisneau:
Atget:
And Brassai, who rather amazingly used to read to me when I was small. My grandmother knew him from her days in Paris, and he would come to stay at her house in the south, and read all the children stories. I was six, and my French was not fluent, so I only caught one word in ten, but I loved staring at his ancient, kindly face with its poppy eyes. It was only years later that I discovered the dear old gent with the story book took pictures like this:
