Residents surrounding this narrow passageway provided few signs of their domestic lives for the photographer to record. Baskets and a few rags hang out of the uppermost window, while two people below observe Eugène Atget making this picture. On a windowsill to the right, houseplants bask in the sunlight invading the tall shaftway. Although people inevitably ambled in and out of this courtyard, dropping off and picking up their ironing at "the most pleasant ironers," the absence of activity when this picture was created conveys a stark sense of gloominess. The weather-beaten facades and the rubbish bins at the left further underscore this impression. During the time that it took to record the details of this space on Atget's glass plate negative, the brightness of the sunlight from the street outside caused overexposure of the view through the portal.