Celebrating women photographers – a view on Diane Arbus
The eternal student and teacher in me, convinced me to become a “friend” of the Cape Town School of Photography. Membership entails staying involved with quarterly projects. I believe that: “when growth stops, decay sets in”. This was therefore something I decided to do in order to keep my creative juices flowing and avoid stagnation.
This quarter’s assignment involves celebrating women photographers around the world. Diane Arbus was the luck of the draw for me and ironically, I actually think that we have a lot in common, well sort of…
She was well known for capturing freaks.
“Freaks was a thing I photographed a lot. It was one of the first things I photographed and it had a terrific kind of excitement for me. I just used to adore them. Most people go through life dreading they’ll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They’ve already passed their test in life. They’re aristocrats.” – Diane Arbus
Other Diane Arbus quotes I can relate to:
“I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn’t photograph them.”
“My favourite thing is to go where I’ve never been.”
“You see someone on the street, and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw.”
I like photographing people in their most simplistic form, as they are. Goya described it very well: “Madam, in your ugliness, I see my beauty.” That’s the similarity I guess. It is amazing to be able to look beyond the obvious, the flaw if you will.
Since I need images for this exhibition, images which captures/resembles something of Diane’s work, I decided to use a couple of images of previous shoots and to try something new. I lined up an informal shoot with a colleague. Although I initially had something different in mind, I was sold on Paul’s idea. Paul is very creative and a good sport, so there was definitely fun to be had.
We met in Kloof Street at Vida E. I was there approximately 30min before Paul arrived, to check out the light and scope the scene. Vida E was already packed at 07h45 with people getting their morning coffee fix. Paul had no inhibitions and posed for me outside, ordered his coffee and sat at one of the pavement tables while I merrily snapped away.
According to him, people were more in stitches about me lying on my back in Kloof Street getting that “one shot” than him being cross-dressed! I’m not sure if I believe him though, but assured him that it was all about getting the right shot. The couple of images I’m really hooked on were taken with my Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II lens. I absolutely love working with this lens and I really like the depth of field I get when working with stills and portraits. Within 20min I new I had the images I envisioned. Paul and I finished our coffee and life on Kloof Street went on as usual.
Although the images are very colorful, I consciously decided to change some of them into black and white since most of Diane’s work was in black and white. I am very happy with the final results and the black and white works to create an archive, surrealistic feel.
Conflict within
Vergane Glorie
The Red Beret
Yolanda Saayman
Tags: diane arbus, kloof street, surrealistic, vida e, women photographers