Writing with light: nocturnal photography by Léon Gimpel. Paris, December 1921. Christmas Eve, an elephant takes up water from a waterfall and sprays a crowd of monkeys hidden in some palm trees. The scene is in Paris, rue de Rivoli. Made from coloured neon lighting, it was the work of the Florentine engineer, Jacopozzi. He helped transform the Paris of the twenties into “the city of light”, and gained renown with his lighting project to create the “False Paris” ordered by the French military high command during the First World War. The lighting experiments performed by this “light magician” fascinated the French photographer Léon Gimpel.
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