Paris and Parisians as seen through the affectionate lens of an award-winning American photojournalist.
As his loving but crisply unsentimental images make evident, Peter
Turnley is a clear-eyed descendant of such master French photographers
as Brassai, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau, and Edouard Boubat;
the latter two, in fact, have written brief tributes to him that serve
as forewords to this book. That Turnley's work has been inspired by
these earlier influences comes as no suprise, for as a young
photographer he worked as Doisneau's assistant, and he subsequently
became a close friend of Boubat, meeting him "at least once a week for
an afternoon glass of rouge and warm conversation." Yet Turnley's work
is uniquely his own, rooted in his 25-year affair of the heart with the
most beautiful city in the world. A longtime resident of the city, he
invites us to share an intimate Paris that outsiders rarely see, giving
us seductive glimpses of Paris life as lived on the street, in the
Metro, and at countless neighborhood cafes.
