Born and raised in Bordeaux, France, Eugene Atget was orphaned at age five.  By 1877 Atget had signed on as a cabin boy on a merchant vessel and, soon after, moved to Paris.  An aspiring actor, he applied twice to the National Conservatory of Music and Drama and was finally accepted in 1879.  Atget was eventually asked to leave the Conservatory, but he continued to pursue an acting career for the next decade, playing minor characters in the productions of a traveling Parisian troupe.

Atget permanently ended his acting career in 1888 and, at the age of thirty-one, bought his first camera.  In 1890, he opened a shop in Paris to sell his work to painters and illustrators.  By 1897 Atget narrowed the focus of his subject-matter to Paris and eventually established himself as a specialist in Parisian scenes, especially old Paris.  With the exception of several years during World War I, Atget tirelessly photographed the streets, carts, interiors, parks, storefronts and street merchants of Paris.  He worked for the Bibliotheque Nationale from 1910-1912 and independently thereafter, creating approximately 10,000 photographs before he died in 1927.

(active Bordeaux, France, 1857 – 1927)