March 9, 2026, Issue

I love photography writing. There’s an interesting piece by Hilton Als in this week’s New Yorker. It’s a review of “Eugène Atget: The Making of a Reputation” at the International Center of Photography. Als likes the show. He says he’s “grateful for any opportunity to investigate this essentially mysterious work, which pushes you away even as it pulls you in.”

I’m not sure what Als means when he says Atget’s photos “push you away.” Maybe he’s referring to their silence. He writes,

When I was younger and didn’t “get” Atget, I thought of his images as silent, with no action, no story. But now I can see that they are full of story—the story of time and its passage. My visits to the I.C.P. convinced me that Atget knew exactly what he was doing when he chose to make an epic record of time and place.

I like that passage, although I’d alter it slightly. Instead of “full of story,” I’d say “full of time and place.” Atget’s photos are an epic record of time and place. 

Postscript: Another excellent New Yorker piece on Atget’s photography is Anthony Lane’s “A Balzac of the Camera” (April 25, 1994). Lane says, “Atget stopped to absorb the detail that others failed to notice.” Right there, I think, is the essence of Atget’s brilliant art. 

Eugène Atget, Bourg-la-Reine, ferme Camille Desmoulins (1901)