The image was captured spontaneously at the Place de l’Europe, outside the Saint-Lazare train station in Paris with his portable Leica camera: a man in mid-air leaping over wet ground with his shadow reflected beneath him. Behind him posters in a wall advertise dancers who echo the man’s movement, as well as the Railowski Circus. The man is forever framed in the air.

This was one of the few photographs that the artist cropped. Cartier-Bresson explained, “There was a plank fence around some repairs behind the Gare Saint-Lazare, and I was peeking through the spaces with my camera eye. This is what I saw. The space between the planks was not entirely wide enough for my lens, which is the reason the picture is cut off on the left.”