Ilse Bing (1899-1998) was one of several leading women photographers in the inter-war period. Born into a Jewish family in Frankfurt, she initially pursued an academic career before moving to Paris in 1930 to concentrate on photography. She moved to New York during the Second World War as a Jewish immigrant, and returned to Paris occasionally, where this photograph was taken. Bing had lived in Paris in the 1930s and was influenced at the time by the German New Photography, characterised by experimentation, light manipulation, stark angles and geometric shapes. Perhaps also influenced by the Surrealist movement, Bing liked to remove objects from their context, a strategy which gave her subject new characteristics. In this image, Bing focuses on steep perspectives and cropped details, creating the illusion of a extrodinarily large lamp-post in a tiny street and using light and shade to give stark contrasts.