Her Face For What It's Worth To Her

I like the juxtaposition Jeff (tone and light too)....a lot of things finally terminate in a corner right next to less important ones...

Never bring a camera to your wife's hair salon. No good can come of it.

"Her Face For What It's Worth To Her" , I would have read it as what her face is worth to this place? seeing the corner on the lower R... I have my doubts..... ;-)) Good composition in B/W, angle and light.

 

Very well done in B/W that befits her time.

That's some heavy armament she's got on her wrist. Kind of a backstreet view of glamor you give us. And you are absolutely right about taking a camera into a the wife's beauty salon. I once did that and it was pretty clear that I was persona non grata. I got the picture.

Pnina: My thought on this one: it's a scary world when all you have is your face and nothing behind it.

 

 

Cherlyn: Frighteningly flawless. (I hope that's how people describe me, too).

 

 

David: You'd think that after all that "suffering for beauty," everyone would line-up to have their picture taken. Not so, my friend, not so. Beauty is the art of deception. The magician never likes the wise guy who points out where the rabbit was hidden. Similarly, nobody likes it when a feller mills around a beauty salon and announces, "Oh, so THAT's what you use to bleach your mustache." I wait outside a lot.

Hi Jeff,

There is much to think about with this image. I like the black and white and tones. A very classic imae with a modern flare. Nice capture and presentation. Best Regards Katherine

The angle you have chosen is just enough to pry this inert picture away from its cozy harbor and send it adrift into the world of art.

Katherine: It seemed cruel to reduce her to two dimensions, but once she parked herself beneath the floodlights and cameras, what choice did I have? Seriously, I could've entitled this "Bored at the Beauty Salon" and it would've been more truthful.

 

 

Jack: Thanks for noticing the angle. I tried it several ways, but this seemed to bring her back to life. In the others, she remained just a poster poseur.

Very nice work and title, Jeff!

I can't imagine the photo working any other way than this angle; it's the first thing that impressed me. I like the juxtaposition of glamour with the tawdry lower right corner. Light is great and the B&W choice seems inevitable, the only possible option. All in all, I'd say it's well worth a trip into a women's salon.

Ah...she's here...and i found people waiting for her in front of the stage! Very nice point of view and hence perfect composition. compliments -koushik

Ruud: Thanks so much!

 

 

Tim: After spending an hour or so waiting, I learned that glamor is a production. Such paraphernalia and products. Home Depot on a small scale. I'm glad I don't have to suffer for beauty.

 

 

Koushik: Yep, she was just lounging around waiting for attention. We both felt relieved when I finally snapped her portrait.

There is something in those eyes...

First i didn't like the bottom of the image but while i viewed it a bit more i started liking it because it shows how cruel the world is. The star is pushed on the corner but still there is that magic in her eyes... and that shows how immortal she can truely be. I think you presented it very well with this angle you used.

Jeff, uh hello, ;-) this one fine shot.

The first thing I thought, when I saw this: Sag mir wo die Blumen sind.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3ET1b0ymZs

 

 

Like your own title, it says it all, For ever and ever

regards

Very good composition and appropriate title. Best Regards. Glauco

Tero: Immortality requires work. All the wires and electricity, to me, conveyed the artificiality of glamor and the quest for attention.

 

 

Joke: Your link was worth the post. Wonderful little tribute. Wonderful.

 

 

Ed: Thanks so much. It's always nice when you comment.

 

 

Glauco: Thanks for your thoughts.

Jeff, you see, I'm not so hilarious after all. ;-)

Fine that you like my comment.

with kind regards.

Thanks to Joke for the YouTube link. Dietrich giving Pete Seeger perhaps a little more drama than I'd like and kind of a trite orchestration behind her but great to see the photos and hear the voice.

Jeff, I think the original photographer may be Ruth Harriet Louise. She was the photographer featured in the exhibition but there's some ambiguity as to whether this particular photo is hers. I like paying homage to the creator of the art from which another work is derived, when possible, and it also gives us a chance to take a look at some of Louise's original photos, well worth studying by any aspiring photographer.

This reminds me that I still have some photos of Ian that I haven't gotten to! :)

I'll be honest and tell you that I like the photograph you've photographed, although it's not one of my favorites of that genre, but I don't get your photograph and some of the statements about it have confused me even more.

Jack refers to the picture within the picture as "inert." I may be misunderstanding, but I don't see that and, frankly, I think the angle from which you've photographed it is less important than the original image itself. (Also note one of the quotes below which talks about shooting angle.)

You say to Pnina: "t's a scary world when all you have is your face and nothing behind it." I don't see that represented in your photo, although it would be fertile ground to pursue. And I don't find it a fair statement in the context of the embedded photo.

(By the way, the stated purpose of the exhibition, comprised of 10 often-photographed personalities, including Marilyn Monroe, John Kennedy, Elvis, Audrey Hepburn, Muhammed Ali, and Hitler, was to explore the relationship between portraits and personalities known so well through their portraits.)

I'd like to offer some quotes by Klaus-Jurgen Sembach in his introduction to a book of Dietrich portraits:

"[both the publicity shots and the shots made for artistic purposes by famous photographers] reiterate . . . archetypal . . . situations: seduction, triumph, surrender. What they never show, however, is indifference. Marlene Dietrich was never a model in the classic, passive sense, someone who serves essentially as a mere object. On the contrary, she was almost always the determinative actress who makes us realize that the fixed moment, too, is a slice of life, and it is precisely this intensity in her photographs which provides a key to the understanding of our enduring interest in her."

". . . f one studies portrait series made of other stars, one will eventually notice that en face pictures are not the rule. Evidently very few of these subjects have the ability to look the lens -- and therefore us -- directly in the eye. This observation is startling and somewhat confusing, and it triggers a few doubts and questions in our minds. . . . We frequently sense a lack of true participation in these faces, or they betray the strain that comes from trying to look 'significant.' Full-face photographs are real visual adventures almost solely in the case of Dietrich. Direct access to her personality, the intensity of the face that not only is composed but also looks back -- these are rarely encountered, but when they are, they do not release the observer readily. These pictures look like invitations to a dialogue: the object is also the subject, and anything but passive."

"Fifty years of artificial existence, endured by dint of self discipline, must have created someone whose individual traits have merged with and finally been subsumed by the official image which she has given to the world. The power of metamorphosis cannot be reversed, especially not when such a mutation has been determined from the start and then pursued as the whole point of one's life. It represents fulfillment and produces true happiness: ever-present reality. Is this not truly admirable? Without evasiveness, without sentimentality, she testified to a life of fulfillment that for most others would be only a dream or a hope. And yet, her personality has not become some minor adjunct to her second life; instead they have fused, become one and the same. The result has been a unique existence for her, an existence that retains all its human dimension. In exchange for this redemption from earthly vicissitudes, her transformation into a human being as a form of art has been a small price to pay."

I don't think Dietrich suffered for beauty; she was driven to it. Regarding Dietrich, perhaps beauty isn't, as you call it, an "art of deception," but rather a unique merging of art and life, where person and persona seem genuinely to be one.

Including Dietrich herself, there's so much in the photographs of her of great importance.

Oh the good ole days. A wonderful actress along with a great composition to present such a fine lady. Thanks for sharing. Take care

You must be presenting this ironically -- a free-thinking femininst, an actress who stood up to Hitler -- yet you surround her by elements by which women are superficially judged. Clever pic, clever title

Joke: Thanks for the follow-up.

 

 

Cynthia: She's a timeless beauty. I'm glad you liked this one.

I don't pretend to know much about Marlene. I know snippets from old movies watched years ago. In the deep cobwebbed archives of my memory, I recall some remnants of her history. I wonder whether people know much of her as a person.

 

 

But that face. And what a face it is. Aspirational in its flawlessness. Is the face the same as the person? And what happens to us when the person inside no longer matches the face we see in the mirror? And what happens when the face in the mirror doesn't match the image we have in our heads of some ideal?

 

 

I didn't take this as a photo of a person, although you who know a little about her history and personality are able to draw associations and meaning that I didn't. I take this as an experience in a beauty salon where people pay good money to accomplish an ideal. I do think there's a deceptiveness to beauty. Outward beauty often operates like the doors at a supermarket, the world flinging open where the doors remain shut to many others. Would she have had the audacity to stand up to Hitler had she been plain? I don't know. Would she have become the personality she became if her soul were poured into a different package? I don't know. Did the outside and inside become fused? Did she become a created caricature of a real person? And why is her face still popping up years after her death?

 

 

There are many wonderful people past and present who will never grace a poster. So let's be real. She was a stunning woman who looked stunning on film. She's timeless. And that's why she's hanging around a beauty salon. Her face was worth a lot to her. Her face became her.

 

 

The title came from a Suzanne Vega song. "Olivia lies under anesthesia. Her wit and wonder snuffed. In a routine operation. Her own beauty not enough. Her passions and her prudences. Her finances and fears. Her face for what it's worth to her. In the passing of the years."

 

 

The photo is of Marlene, but not about Marlene.

 

 

That being said, I always enjoy how you both make me think and think again, and the depth you bring to the discussion.

"I didn't take this as a photo of a person."

 

"The photo is of Marlene, but not about Marlene."

 

And it's Dietrich's beauty that's superficial? It sounds like you're saying, "She may or may not be more of a person but I'm just using her image because she's a pretty face and I want to say something about the superficiality of just being a pretty face, so please pay no attention to the woman behind the curtain."

 

I also question what it says about Ruth Harriet Louise. Does your portrayal here take for granted her hard work and efforts of managing makeup, lighting, pose, mood, connection, intimacy, tough post processing work? So the viewer comes along and has a quick smile rather than moving past the superficial pretty face of the so-called "glamour" shot to understand what this consummate photographer has actually accomplished and the hard work it took to get there. And all the while it's Louise's photo that occupies the majority of space in your photo. Are we to ignore Louise as well?

 

Jeff, please don't take this as any kind of personal attack. I hope you know how much I respect your approach to life as evidenced by your pictures and your words and deeds. But, as you're probably too painfully aware, I like to push when I'm moved to. And this one pushed buttons. I always approach your work from a bottom line of appreciating you as an artist and fellow traveler on the path of photography and learning. This in no way undercuts my admiration of your ability to tell visual stories, which you have been doing more of and more effectively lately. It is something, since I first started with a camera, that I've wanted to do and I know how difficult it can be to narrate a bit with a camera, even when the narrative is non-narrative. So, all of this is meant within the spirit more of challenge and seeking than of criticism.