Like Mozart in music, or Reshevsky in chess, Lartigue was a prodigy, and while still very young he photographed the lives of his rich and privileged friends and family in the early 20th century.
It seems that even as a child he somehow had the aesthetic judgement and knowledge of photographic tricks and techniques that most of us have to struggle to acquire ... through hard study, and much trial and error.
He trained as a painter in Paris, and in adult life became a well known artist. His photography became widely known only in the 1960s, but it is now obvious that it was as a photographer that he was outstandingly gifted.
He tried to extend into adulthood the carefree, playful, eccentric world of his childhood. He was always happy to photograph people at play, or with their animals, and to document technological advances such as powered flight and the rise of the motor car, but though he lived through both the World Wars of the 20th century he seems to have gone out of his way not to record them.
This shot, typical of his style, was taken in the Avenue du Boie de Boulogne in Paris, in 1911 when he was still only seventeen.
