I find Eiffel Tower pictures irresistible, perhaps because I live in France but more so because the Eiffel Tower is the symbol, par excellence, of romance, spontaneity and everything French. Some of the best Eiffel Tower pictures have been captured by the world's best-loved photographers including such great names as Robert Doisneau, Elliott Erwitt and Erwin Blumenfeld.

Robert Doisneau (1912-1994) is one of the best known French photographers, famous for his photographs made during the 1930s in Paris. Doisneau worked for Vogue for a period of time but didn't enjoy being a fashion photographer any where near as much as being out on the streets of Paris, photographing real life. his. His work documents every day life and has been describe as realistic but playful. This playfulness is evident in many of his works such as the Champ de Mars shown below.

Champ de Mars, Paris
Robert Doisneau
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Doisneau also loved to photograph children playing in the street particularly because without the presence of their parents, children have a greater freedom to just be themselves. He treated the children that he photographed seriously and with great respect for their culture. Because of this there are several Primary Schools in France named after him.

Champs de Mars Gardens
Robert Doisneau
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Erwin Blumenfeld (1897-1969) was a famous American photographer of German origin. moved to France in 1936. From 1937 to 1939, he published in Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. When the Second World War broke out, he was held in French camps as he was considered to be an alien, but was eventually allowed to leave for New York in 1941 and became a US citizen in 1946. The photographs Blumenfeld made for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar were mostly in color but his preference was for black and white and he processed his black and white images in his darkroom himself.

Sur la Tour Eiffel, c.1938
Erwin Blumenfeld
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Elliott Erwitt (b. 1928) works in advertising but is also a documentary photography famous for his black and white images that display his love of irony and absurdity. He also has a great knack for capturing 'decisive moments', a term coined by Henri Cartier-Bresson who said: "Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative". The photograph shown below, taken by Erwitt, is a brilliant example of his ability to capture that decisive moment.