This volume is one in a series of pocket-sized books on masters of photography based on the concept of 55 representative images.. History and context is provided here by Gerry Badger, a photographer, curator, and teacher of photographic history at Brighton University. Badger is the author of the book accompanying the BBC series The Genius of Photography. I cannot now find writing credits for the series and don’t know if he was involved with that as well, or only the book.
Badger’s 13-page introduction is framed as
The Atget Problem: what exactly does his photography represent? The ex-thespian described himself as a creator of documents, but has since been hailed as a founding father of modern photography. Because he had so little to say, he left behind much to discuss. Badger sees the Atget Problem as a mirror of the problem of photography: what exactly is documentary photography?
Badgers believes much of Atget’s work is slightly off-key, eccentric, particularly in relation to his competitors. His use of a wide angle lens sometimes distorted verticals and he wasn’t concerned about extraneous elements in his images. He didn’t photograph the upper classes, nor much of the lower. He worked in environments decidedly middle class to which he had easy access.
This volume is one in a series of pocket-sized books on masters of photography based on the concept of 55 representative images.. History and context is provided here by Gerry Badger, a photographer, curator, and teacher of photographic history at Brighton University. Badger is the author of the book accompanying the BBC series The Genius of Photography. I cannot now find writing credits for the series and don’t know if he was involved with that as well, or only the book. 
The book begins with an 8-page introduction covering what little we know of Atget’s life (“Scholars have pummeled and shaken them [the facts] without mercy, but for the most part they have stood mute.”), and historical details about the the photographic process within the photographer's lifetime. Although known towards the end of his life as reliant on outdated technology, when Atget began his photographic career he did so at a technological turning point. No longer was it necessary for camera operators to treat their own plates and paper. These were now manufactured and could be purchased from suppliers of photographic equipment. What this meant was greater geographical range for the photographer, who no longer had to carry with him a small chemist’s shop. Szarkowski sees this technical development as having opened up the range of photographic subjects. It was now easy to travel about and shoot most anything and everything. Another technical development of the period was the ability to print photos on ordinary paper, but as Atget never worked for the popular press, this advance seems to have hardly impinged on his photographic career.
