The Strongman of Les Halles Market, Paris

From the Getty Museum record

Most of Brassaï's portraits situate the subject in his or her habitual environment--at a desk or easel or in a favorite bistro. The figures are neither consciously posed nor captured off-guard. Brassaï did not have a portrait studio, nor did he employ banks of artificial lighting or props of any kind. He worked mostly with natural light and preferred to use the most straightforward equipment. Even in this close-up portrait of a burly man on the street, Brassaï managed to convey a sense of character through attention to detail, gesture, and mass within the photograph's compressed space.