looking inward
Last week, I discovered Elinor Carucci’s recent photographs of herself and her twins. I love them, and I love that she calls it “A limited glimpse into my most recent body of work — my children.” Once you see them, you’ll see the emphasis on body. (Go look at them, but they’re probably not safe for work.) I first discovered Elinor Carucci’s work last fall when her work was exhibited on Women in Photography. I was transfixed by her images then, and they stayed with me long after I stopped looking at them over and over. Her new work is no exception. For me, they present the sheer physicality of motherhood in a way you can’t ignore. And they’re challenging to look at; they really make you question our ideas about motherhood. I especially love the one where she’s standing naked, soon after giving birth with her c-section incision still covered with gauze and a linea nigra (or whatever it’s called – I can’t remember anymore) striping down her belly, her engorged breasts standing out above eye level like a porn star’s. Somehow that really speaks to me about how oversexualized breasts are in our culture.
A few days after seeing Carucci’s new work, I saw this blog post, which wonders why it seems that only thin, conventionally beautiful women do nude self-portraits, and they cited Carucci as one of those. I have noticed that trend too, although more in the context of flickrites’ work, where photographers seem to be capitalizing on their conventional beauty. But I see Carucci’s work differently. Her beauty isn’t the subject of her self-portraits, and in some of her pictures she even looks a bit freakish. For me, that’s part of the appeal of her images, that willingness to show herself in less than flattering ways.
I went to a portraiture workshop today that was all about making people look pretty in pictures. I thought it would be good for me to learn these techniques, so I can employ them when I want to, but after a day of learning rules and formulas, I’m just not that into it. I remember at the workshop with Ruth Kaplan I went to last summer, there was at least one professional portrait photographer attending. And Kaplan commented on how awkward it must be to photograph the person who is paying you.
That said, I’m really beginning to doubt myself. Tonight I saw a quote where a photographer remembered being asked by his teacher, whether his photographs were interesting enough to get him to leave his naked girlfriend in bed to go out and make them. The pictures I make at the drop-in centre would get me out of bed to make them. But I’m worried the images aren’t achieving my intention. I want to make portraits that make you wonder, about the person you’re looking at and their experiences, but also about the interaction that went on between me and the person, about what drew me to them (or them to me). That said, I can’t control how people see my pictures or the people in them, and as I realized from The True Meaning of Pictures, what you see in a photo is informed more by your own mind and preconceptions than by what’s in the photograph or the photographer’s mind.
Last week was a good week for me finding inspiring photographers. Nymphoto did an interview with KayLynn Deveney, whose work I hadn’t seen before. I can’t wait to buy her book, The Day-to-Day Life of Albert Hastings. She made pictures of her neighbour, then had him caption the photos in a notebook. So the book shows her selection of images, and his captions in his own beautiful handwriting.
I also found her other portfolio, Edith and Len, fascinating, as it combines her pictures of an elderly couple in their retirement home room with her own introspective journal entries about the process of documentary photography. I want to pick out my favourite bits from her journal entries, but I think it’s better just to go through the whole portfolio and experience it yourself. I will say that I’m glad I’m not alone in feeling some ambivalence about photographing people.
[insert thoughtful and insightful conclusion here]
March 7th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Those Carucci photos are eerie and interesting.
March 8th, 2009 at 7:44 am
Yes, the Carucci photos were fascinating. I gotta say, Kate, that I’m really enjoying listening to you think out loud about these issues. I have no answers or nothing relevant to say but I am finding it fascinating.
Oh, I do have one thing to say–only a man would say “what makes it worth leaving your naked girlfriend in bed?” Why must sex be the standard by whch we justify all that we do–or rather all that men do? If someone were interviewing Carucci (or another mother) I’m sure they’d ask what about their work makes it worth leaving their children for…
It’s not just a double standard–and yet, it is a double standard; it’s this pervasive assumption that art and biology are incompatible opposites and I don’t feel comfortable with the distinction at some visceral level.
March 8th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Mad, great thought. I hadn’t thought of it that way. To be fair to the instructor, however, the guy he was asking was 19 or 20, so that probably was the most meaningful way to make his point.
Also, I do sometimes feel guilty for the time I spend at the drop-in centre. It’s only 2 hours a week, but I’m serving coffee, not changing the world. Ironic that it feels intensely selfish, and I can’t give it up.
March 9th, 2009 at 8:54 am
i’d never seen Carucci’s work before and i found it fascinating…though i was more compelled by the glimpses of her postpartum body than by the kids, i think simply because i’m accustomed to nakedish children. with kids, i feel conditioned to see their bodies as evidently beautiful…with my own, and that of other women who have scars and lumps, there’s a more complex layer.
i did read the blog post you linked to, and while i thought she had amazing points, i will say i don’t see Carucci’s inclusion of her own body in those shots as pandering to traditional notions of beauty.
March 10th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
I found Carucci’s photos challening, but not because she was naked – I find something very exploitive about parents displaying naked pictures of their children. And I’m not saying that I’m right, you understand, but it does make me profoundly uncomfortable.
March 10th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Beck, yes, that is another aspect of Carucci’s photos. Tierney Gearon’s photos of her kids and family even more so. (I think I linked to Gearon’s photos a while back.)
April 1st, 2009 at 9:34 am
hi kate — i’d love to weigh in on this. i don’t really consider Carucci’s work to be hindered by the privilege of her beauty, or the interplay of beauty and her nudity. but it is true, as i wrote, that my initial reaction to that aspect of her ongoing personal self-portraiture kept me from fully embracing her work at first–i *always* question beauty these days, especially in this photo-world. (and yes, i do think that people who are more comfortable casually documenting their life by including a lot of depictions of their own nudity are also more likely to be have traditionally-desired bodies.) however, my first take on her photos actually changed a lot when i saw her speak on a panel at Aperture last fall–she really gave a sense of where she was coming from and how she conceptualizes the intimate and confessional aspects of her work. i was moved by the ways in which the camera, and photography, have helped her literally work through emotional situations in her life. sometimes, for whatever reason, hearing the personal story can really change your perspective on things. sometimes i think we want art to be able to stand alone, in a vacuum, and have it’s own truth. vacuum, schmacuum. -lexi
April 2nd, 2009 at 8:09 am
[...] week, my copy of The Day-to-Day Life of Albert Hastings arrived, which I mentioned a while back. I love it. If you have any interest in documentary portraiture at all, get it. It was only $17 Cdn [...]