L'air de Paris

The vivid history of the capital of love and photography

A city built on two millennia of history, Paris is entering the third century of its love story with photography. It was on the banks of the Seine that Niépce and Daguerre officially gave birth to this new art that has flourished ever since, developing a distinctive language and becoming a vital tool of knowledge. Paris, Portrait of a City recounts the history of the city in photographs ranging from Daguerre’s early incunabula to the most recent images – a span of over a century and a half of transformations. This book brings together the past and the present, the monumental and the everyday, objects and people. Images captured by the most illustrious photographers – Daguerre, Marville, Atget, Lartigue, Brassaï, Kertész, Ronis, Doisneau, Cartier-Bresson and many more – but also by many unknown photographers, attempt to bottle just a little of that “Parisian air,” something of that particular poetry given out by the stones and inhabitants of a constantly changing city that has inspired untold numbers of writers and artists over the ages. Also available in this series: Berlin. Portrait of a City, London. Portrait of a City, and coming soon: New York. Portrait of a City and Los Angeles. Portrait of a City. After the success of these books in their original format, they have now been reformatted to a very affordable pocket size, accessible to all. Paris. Portrait of a City Flexicover, 166 x 117 mm, 192 pages RRP: $19.99 Published: Nov 2013 - Taschen ISBN: 978-3-8365-3217-4 English, French, German