Seeberger Freres, founded in the early 20th century, was a press agency that supplied pictures to the fast growing illustrated press, along with its competition - Rol, Meurisse, and Maurice Branger. It made its reputation with fashion photographs for a new magazine - Vogue. Typical work was similar, though less interesting and subversive, than the pictures taken by Jacques-Henri Lartigue. The three Seeberger brothers were Jules (1872-1932) Louis (1874-1946) and Henri (1876-1956). 
The well-dressed crowd looking at the Seine by the Pont d'Alma on January 28, 1910 had never seen the river like this.
Neither had the animals at the zoo at Jardin des Plantes just upriver nor the rowboating subway workers in the Paris Metro tunnel on the North-South Line.
Rivers overflowing their banks and streets turned into de facto canals are staples of flood photography. Seeberger Freres rose to the occasion with their most memorable images. It appears that straw used to hold the water back didn't deter a curious giraffe from getting a closer look at the flooding.
Perhaps, like their human counterparts, these creatures were awed.
For a related article, see Under Water, May 27, 2009.
2 comments:
Facinating stuff. The last photo is very curious looking - without the back story.
Don, even if you don't read French, visit the link to "One Hundred Years Ago Today" for more pictures of the 1910 Paris flood. I'm still trying to figure out what those animals are in the third photo. They look like they might not be full-grown yet.
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