Gyula Halasz was born in Broasov, Romania in September 1899. He studied painting and sculpture at Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest at his young age. In 1924, he moved to Paris and worked as a journalist for publication to support himself. It was in Paris that he changed his name to Brassai with the meaning of “from Broasov”. Originally, Brassai only took photos to document his articles. However, he went further by getting attracted by the medium. In 1933, Brassai reached his first career peak in photography when he published his first street photography photo-book with the title of “Paris de nuit” (“Paris After Dark” in English). During German occupation between 1943 and 1945, Brassai returned to drawing and sculpture. But he resumed as a photographer after the war and continued through the late 1960s.
In the series of “Paris de nuit”, Brassai captured prostitutes, street cleaners, pimps, and many other evening pleasure seekers. The content in this series is relatively rich. It contains many forms of evening life, indoor or outdoor, cloth on or off, publicly or secretly. In some of his works, he successfully created the feeling of hidden city by using lighting effectively. In some others, he froze the moment of the intimated conducting of the prostitutes and those pleasure seekers. I personally prefer the works that he took on the streets. In the image of one male and one female stood face to face , the street light directly shined toward the face of the male that carved out many details of him, the costume, gesture, and even his smiling face. On the other side, due to the indirect lighting situation, comparing the male, the light on the female was relatively soft. With strong comparison in lighting, Brassai brought up the personality of his objects tactfully.
