He was one of the numerous Hungarian artists who flourished in Paris beginning between the World Wars. Lorant's layout produces some interesting juxtapositions of rich and poor experiencing the city by night. Altogether, they contributed to the art magazine Minotaure, edited by Surrealist forerunner André Breton.

Indeed, Brassaï wasn’t a native Frenchman, but a Hungarian born in Brassó, Transylvania (in modern-day Romania, which was previously under Austro-Hungarian rule). Roaming the city at night, he brought his camera along and began to capture the unique flora and fauna of nighttime Paris. Brassaï himself described it best: “The surreal effect of my pictures was nothing more than reality made fantastic through a particular vision. The layout, with its characteristic full-page bleeds, never more felicitously employed, takes us from image to image, from page to page, and across night-time Paris, with effortless panache. This new edition gives us the same images and, according to the publisher’s statement, “uses the latest engraving technology to reproduce faithfully the quality of the original photographs”.Titled Couple d’amoureux dans un petit café, quartier Italie ( Loving couple in a small cafe, Italy district), the photograph exudes lust and old-world glamour, exemplifying just what made the photographer’s vision so enduring; more than eight decades after its creation, the image remains as evocative and seductive as ever.

The deserted streets could be a factor of the five minute exposure while the close up shots of the street workers, of all occupations would have been necessary because of the lack of electronic flash. When Brassaï was at the age of three his family lived in Paris for a year while his father taught at the Sorbonne.He retained a very individual creative vision, however, commenting: “The surreal effect of my pictures was nothing more than reality made fantastic through a particular vision.

After the success of his book, 'Paris De Nuit' (1933) he produces a more sanitised vision of nocturnal Paris. The back alleys, metro stations, and bistros he photographed are at turns hauntingly empty or peopled by prostitutes, laborers, thugs, and lovers. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. As I no longer have the older version I cannot check, but I will almost certainly replace it at some point now that I know that it is available once again. One, On the boulevard Saint-Jacques (1930–32), even captures Brassaï in his element: He stands on a snowy Parisian street in a heavy coat and a brimmed hat, cigarette propped between his lips, peering into a tripod-mounted camera.First American Edition (1987) of a book originally published in France by Arts et Metiers Graphiques in 1933. In the early 21st century, the discovery of more than 200 letters and hundreds of drawings and other items from the period 1940–1984 has provided scholars with material for understanding his later life and career. Yet it’s their deeply emotive, cinematic quality that transforms his subjects into characters with intergenerational appeal—none more so than the city of Paris itself. There is plenty of atmosphere in the pictures and I particularly like the one of two policemen having a quiet cigarette out side their station. Paris by Night, first published in 1933, features sixty-two of these poetic images, and has become an acknowledged classic of urban photography.