Leaves Under the Eiffel Tower

Ilse Bing was a leading photojournalist and commercial photographer during the 1920s and 1930s in Paris. She was also an avant-garde photographer and among the first to use electronic flash, solarize her negatives, and photograph at night. When she was not producing photo-stories for leading French illustrated magazines and newspapers, she was attracted to what she described as “minor details in a banal conglomeration of things.” This attraction to small details continued on into her later career, as evidenced by the collection of scattered leaves seen here, even as her photographic style changed. In 1941, Bing moved to New York, and she stopped photographing until 1947. Her later works, including this photograph, are larger and more abstract, with a harsher, cooler printing style. From 1957 on, she worked exclusively in color. Bing explained the evolution of her career, saying, “Photography is a youthful art. As I got older, I was at a greater remove which manifested itself at a greater optical remove.”