Rose house

The story behind the photo

La Maison Rose at the corner of its cobbled street in Montmartre, at the moment the sun goes down behind the hill and sets the sky alight directly behind the roof. The house occupies the right half of the frame, the street falls away to the left, and the horizon of roofs beyond is left small and hazy so the eye stays on the pink wall.

The whole picture depends on standing low and close to the kerb. From the middle of the street the house is a facade among facades; from the corner, the building turns, the ivy on the upper floor reads against the sky, and the cobbles lead the eye straight to the door.

The scene is entirely backlit, which means the pink is lit by the sky rather than by the sun and keeps its powdery quality instead of turning orange. I exposed for the bright band on the horizon and let the lower part of the street fall into a deep blue shadow, because that contrast is what makes the hour legible.

The house has been this colour since the early twentieth century, when a model married to a Catalan painter decided the walls should be pink. It has since been photographed several million times. There is no originality left to find here, only light that has never happened in quite this way before.

I wanted a picture of a cliché made honestly: the famous pink corner, at the one moment of the day when the sky behind it does something the postcards do not have.