The avenue de l’Opéra is almost deserted, the last train must be imminent and a nocturnal flâneur with a face constructed by Francis Bacon, contemplates the scene. The glow of street lighting has been carefully applied by hand and superimposed on a monochrome original. The glamour and excitement of Paris by Night has long since departed. If you look deep into the shadows you might glimpse Brassaï with his Voigtländer camera at the ready in search of even darker material. The visual poetry that Brassaï discovered in La Nuit de Paris did not inspire the local postcard industry. Vintage postcards of the night are relatively unusual in France – the true masters of the genre were to be found on the other side of the Atlantic.
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