Kertész's use of the distorting ripples of the swimming pool's surface is revolutionary in the history of photography, freezing time through the camera lens in a way that makes use of a transient phenomenon to create a permanent image. The photograph takes an ordinary subject - a man in a swimming pool - and elevates it into a subject worthy of artist's contemplation. It has been named as one of the most influential photographs of the twentieth century. Kertész took this photograph (of which his brother is probably the subject) when he was a young man, convalescing after being shot during WWI. Though his still life's can be viewed as abstractions, the identity of the object(s) is never hidden.ġ917 Underwater Swimmer, Esztergom, Hungary He advocated the use of bold monochrome lines and the use of reflections and shadows as a means of rendering a still life as a simplified geometric abstraction. He composed many still lifes with the aim of transforming the mundane - such as utensils, eyeglasses and pipes - into something ethereal and poetic. Nothing was too ordinary for his lens since he did not document so much as interpret what was in front of him.
Kertész was highly regarded as a still-life photographer. While working together on the weekly French pictorial VU, Kertész became Gyula's mentor, teaching him the techniques of photographing at night, and nurturing in his student a feeling for the range of artistic possibilities offered through photography. He made the acquaintance of the bi-lingual journalist and picture-editor who was looking for photographic source material for his and other magazine articles. Kertész arrived in Montparnasse, Paris in 1925 speaking no French. One of the most important and revered Parisian street photographers was Kertész's compatriot Gyula Halász, better known to the world of photography as Brassaï. He made a clear distinction between the two spheres believing that there must be something honest and innate in art photography: "As soon as I find a subject which interests me, I leave it to the lens to record it truthfully," he declared. Though he became an accomplished and successful commercial photographer, especially in fashion photography, Kertesz felt that "professional virtuosity" was the enemy of art photography. "The moment always dictates in my work" he said. Kertész felt that intuition was the best ingredient for creating poetic substance. He used his camera lens to freeze time and to turn and opportune street scene, or staged, fixed, object(s), into something metaphorical and permanent. Reared on the languages of rational and irrational modernism - Mondrian and Surrealists for instance - his compositions often sought out and the geometric lines and patterns that would complement and/or alter the picture content. Kertész is revered for the clarity of his style and his emotional connections with his subjects. His feelings of isolation and rootlessness, exacerbated by his reluctance to learn French and English, respectively, would manifest in a body of work that often reflected a quiet mood of melancholy. Kertész travelled the avant-garde road from Budapest, to Paris to New York. 
Less well known by name perhaps than contemporaries (and admirers) such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Brassaï, Kertész, who advocated spontaneity over technical precision - "photographs can be technically perfect and even beautiful, but they have no expression" he once said - created a highly distinctive body of work that reflected his commitment to poetic and geometric forms.
One of the most inventive photographers of the twentieth-century, Kertész (and while he would work across different formats including the polaroid in later years) is regarded most highly perhaps for the way he explored the range of use for the new Leica handheld camera. André Kertész was a Hungarian-born photographer best known for his lyrical, elegant and formally rigorous style.
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