Behind her stall, a market woman appears, illuminated by the hazy light of two globe lamps. The smoke and shadows of this scene lend it an almost cinematic atmosphere. Jahan captures the gestures of this Parisian market woman here, much as Irving Penn would do a decade later in his Small Trades series.
After settling in Paris in 1933, Pierre Jahan met Emmanuel Sougez, then director of the photographic department at the newspaper L’Illustration. It was on Sougez’s advice that he decided to dedicate himself to photography professionally. At the same time, he worked as a freelance photographer, taking pictures of Paris at night.