Paris
The report on the daguerreotype, which Francois Arago delivered to his colleagues in the Chamber of Deputies on 3 July 1839, moved France to the forefront of the photographic milieu making Paris its capital for many years.
Paris reputed to be "the most beautiful city on earth," attracted a collection of artists who discovered on its streets and in its neighbourhoods a multitude of subjects that they made into world famous images. In the period between the World Wars, the "gifted ones" who came from Central Europe (Kertész and Brassaï from Hungary) found in Paris both a haven and an incubator of ideas. What came to be known as humanist photography, imbued with empathy for the ephemeral quality of a moment, would find in Paris, an almost limitless palette and a source of inspiration to other movements.
In the second half of the 20th century the United States, and New York in particular, became the chief photographic rival, but Paris... will always be Paris.
