Kiki dans un bar, Montparnasse 1931

Brassai captured this moment in Montparnasse with his camera – a slice of life, really. I can almost hear the clinking of glasses and the murmur of conversation in this image of people enjoying themselves, or trying to. There's a couple kissing, seemingly lost in their own world. And then you have this woman with a feathered boa – is she bored, maybe a little sad? It’s like Brassai has given us a stage, and each person is playing their part. You can sense the energy of the place. What do you think they’re talking about? I wonder what it was like to be there, to be one of those people in the bar, caught in that moment. Photography, like painting, has this amazing way of freezing time, inviting us to project our own feelings onto the scene. It’s a conversation between the artist, the subject, and us. It's a way of seeing, of thinking, and of feeling the world.