I was looking for inspiration for my first blog, which was a struggle for let's face it photographers use images to communicate not words. Then I thought about who and what inspires me as a photographer and the floodgates opened!
Using the blog as a platform I would like to share with you my inspirations, my heroes and heroines and works of both the analogue era and digital age that have me in awe - starting with the awesome Jill Freedman.
I have only just discovered Freedman, a published New York City documentary photographer who probably didn't get the recognition she deserved, at least not in the UK.
"Then one day I woke up and wanted a camera. I borrowed one. I had never taken a picture before, and as soon as I held it in my hands it felt good. I never had the sense of holding a machine. I read the instructions, went out into the street, shot two rolls, had them developed. I was thunderstruck. It were as though I had been taking pictures for years, but in my head, without a camera. “That’s it,” I said. “I’m a photographer.” What a relief." - Jill Freedman*
"Photojournalism was always it for me. Those pictures in the attic [from Life magazines] had set my course. Those, and all the characters I’d met. To tell a story in the blink of an eye, have it printed so that millions of people could see it and wrap their fish in it, to have my pictures reach people the way those Life magazines had reached me, now that was doing something." - Jill Freedman*
*extracts from www.jillfreedman.com
Jill Freedman died in 2019 aged 79.
If you haven't met her already and/or if you would like further insight into this formidable woman then let me introduce you to Jill Freedman and her work courtesy of this beautiful short film made by the talented Pete Shanel, showcased here with the aid of madegood.com who promote creative and original film making. Enjoy.
Published here with the kind permission of Pete Shanel - peteshanel.com
