Thread by @dean_frey

Willy Ronis
Marie-Anne et Vincent, Paris, Noël 1951
#JoyeuxNoël

Willy Ronis
Semaine de Noël, Paris, 1954
#JoyeuxNoel

Willy Ronis
Semaine de Noël, boulevard Haussmann, Paris, 1956
"It is December 15, 1956. We are near the Chaussée-d'Antin metro station. I'm snooping. Suddenly a little girl holds out her arm and probably says to the newspaper seller: 'You put on your hood...'"

Willy Ronis
Semaine de Noël, Charleroi (Belgique), 1982
#JoyeuxNoël
Ronis's commentary on this photograph is too long to fit in a tweet, but too interesting to leave out, so I'll post it in the next tweet.

Willy Ronis is one of my favourite photographers. His commentaries are often illuminating, either for technical or for human interest reasons. This is for the photo in the previous tweet; of course, it's via Google Translate.
Ronis obviously takes great care with his printing!

Willy Ronis
Noël, 1952
"The little child in white contemplates the garlands of lamps & is impatiently impatient: he wants to see the animated windows. You had to be there, daring 1/10, even 1/5 of a second by hand, in the rain. The rest is the great uncertainty of sport."

Willy Ronis
Semaine de Noël, boulevard Haussmann, Paris, 1954
#JoyeuxNoël
Again, I'll add Ronis's commentary to the next tweet...
This is one of my all-time favourite Ronis shots.

Willy Ronis's commentary to the previous photo, taken on the Boulevard Haussmann in Paris, in 1954.

Willy Ronis
Semaine de Noël, métro Palais-Royal, 1954
"Around the central axis formed by the knitting newspaper merchant; on the right, a traveler emerges from the basement to immediately immerse himself in the news; on the left, the crowd in front of the windows of the Louvre."

Willy Ronis
Semaine de Noël, boulevard Haussmann, 1987
It's funny how often Ronis says that it's a lucky break that he happens to take a shot at just the right time. I'm sure there's more skill than luck involved!
Ronis used this photo for his 1988 Christmas Card.
#JoyeuxNoël

Willy Ronis
Semaine de Noël, boulevard Haussmann, Paris, 1987
"This dad perched his little girl on his shoulders so that she could better enjoy the fairytale spectacle of the toy windows."
What an outstanding photograph!
#JoyeuxNoël

Willy Ronis
Semaine de Noël, rue de Mogador, Paris, 1952
Another great Xmas shot by a master photographer, who I believe is at the same exalted level as Henri Cartier-Bresson & Robert Doisneau. Again, his commentary on this shot follows in the next tweet.
#JoyeuxNoël

Willy Ronis comments on the context of the photograph in the previous tweet, with some technical matters regarding the shot & its printing. Interesting that he uses the term "le moment à retenir" - "the moment to remember", analogous to Cartier-Bresson's "decisive moment".

Willy Ronis
Semaine de Noël, place du Palais-Royal, 1954
A fascinating, slightly disturbing study: two figures look into the camera, but everyone else is involved in some different world beyond this picture. In the middle: a man who seems to be in some kind of existential crisis.

One last Willy Ronis photo of Parisians observed just before Christmas. Rue du Havre, December 1954
"Each individual wears a mask of their individual worries, including fatigue. It was the unrepressed yawn of the young woman from the center that prompted the click."