The Easel

24th March 2026

Leica hawk

Why isn’t Helen Levitt more widely known? Street photography emerged fully in the post war period but Levitt, with her lyrical images of New York neighbourhoods, was an earlier “pathfinder”. Similarly, she turned to colour photography ahead of more famous names like Eggleston. Her preference was for the emotional over the descriptive or the political. Her most famous images remain those of New York neighbourhoods, rather than the glamour of uptown. Said she “I can feel what people feel.”

Paris Rediscovers its Poetic Eye: Robert Doisneau Returns Home

Together with superb compositional skills, Doisneau used whimsy and irony to build his reputation. Having picturesque Paris as a backdrop also helped. Working as a freelance commercial photographer he and Cartier- Bresson pioneered photojournalism and a humanist approach to photography. His street image, The Kiss, made him famous, exemplified the contrast between bourgeois decorum and the romantic energy of youth and reflected his view that ordinary life deserves the most careful attention.