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By 1897, Atget began a systematic
visual catalogue of Paris, photographing the city’s streets, buildings,
shopfronts, parks and people prodigiously over a twenty-year period. To
increase his knowledge about his subject, he became an amateur urban and
architectural historian. Following the tradition of earlier French photographers
like Charles Marville and Henri Le Secq, Atget used his camera to create
images that preserved the city’s historical past. Yet these photographs
were not just documentation, for Atget’s visual acumen is evident in many
of the striking compositions that are characteristic of his work.
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