photography-now
I really like this photograph, taken c. 90 years ago by self-taught modernist photographer Aenne Biermann (1898-1933)
Helga's hair looks uneven, either self-cut or by a friend. And the soft, full lips, which I can imagine are almost about to smile, or else just have smiled for the previous frame taken by Biermann a moment or two before. I'm guessing she took a dozen or so shots in all.
Her eyes, a moment before would have been looking straight at the lens and then Biermann would have told her, 'no, look away to the side, it's better', and Helga did, gazing off into the far distance, fixing on something of no consequence that would be forgotten moments later once the pictures have been taken and they move on. But for that moment they were locked into something out there in the world, while how she looked on that day, that fraction of a second endures.
An innocuous moment, a face that is neither still nor suggesting (e)motion, open to innumerable possibilities, and so fully brought to life within a perfectly placed narrow depth of focus, when the light had just spilled enough into her eyes, and as the sun beat down, ninety years ago.
The camera is lowered, the lens cap replaced, the photographer knowing, or at least hoping, they have managed to make something. Aenne and Helga maybe go for coffee (Biermann pays as a thank you), chat for 25 minutes then, looking in each other's face, smile, say repeated goodbyes and go their seperate ways.
I really like this photograph, taken c. 90 years ago by self-taught modernist photographer Aenne Biermann (1898-1933)
Helga's hair looks uneven, either self-cut or by a friend. And the soft, full lips, which I can imagine are almost about to smile, or else just have smiled for the previous frame taken by Biermann a moment or two before. I'm guessing she took a dozen or so shots in all.
Her eyes, a moment before would have been looking straight at the lens and then Biermann would have told her, 'no, look away to the side, it's better', and Helga did, gazing off into the far distance, fixing on something of no consequence that would be forgotten moments later once the pictures have been taken and they move on. But for that moment they were locked into something out there in the world, while how she looked on that day, that fraction of a second endures.
An innocuous moment, a face that is neither still nor suggesting (e)motion, open to innumerable possibilities, and so fully brought to life within a perfectly placed narrow depth of focus, when the light had just spilled enough into her eyes, and as the sun beat down, ninety years ago.
The camera is lowered, the lens cap replaced, the photographer knowing, or at least hoping, they have managed to make something. Aenne and Helga maybe go for coffee (Biermann pays as a thank you), chat for 25 minutes then, looking in each other's face, smile, say repeated goodbyes and go their seperate ways.