Posts in Category : From the PWP Archives
Name, Place, Show
This isn’t about Shoshana. There have been e-mails with tears and testimonials. This is not the place for that. This blog is about the experience of women in photography from the 1970′s on, when PWP was founded. But the history of woman in photography is not just about cameras and film and working against whatever social restrictions exist at whatever time. It’s also about the quest for recognition. Are you a singer if no one hears your song? Are you a photographer if no one ever sees your work? This is not about Shoshana. This is about what she did. For those who don’t know, Shoshana Rothaizer compiled the accomplishments of the individual members of Professional Women Photographers into a [continue reading...]
Sgt. Pepper Uncovered
This post was named to Photoshelter’s list of Best Blog Posts of 2011. She’s always dressed like a babe: white trench coat with no sign of anything underneath, a clinging jumpsuit, a sparkly blouse that reveals far more than it covers. Then again, it was TV and ratings were involved. When Angie Dickinson starred from 1974 to 1978 as Sgt. Leanne “Pepper” Anderson in NBC’s Police Woman, it was groundbreaking television. Those were the years women were pouring into the work force, and entering professions like law enforcement and photography that traditionally had been the provence of men. But television always plays catch up to social trends, and glamorizes them with little regard for the truth. In the case of women [continue reading...]
BOV: The Life – An Appreciation of Dannielle Hayes
BOV: The Life - An Appreciation of Dannielle Hayes As we know, in the beginning there was a show. Fashion Institute of Technology, 1975, Breadth of Vision: Portfolios of Women Photographers, a historic exhibition out of which PWP developed. But there was another vision going on, a life and personal outlook. Last spring I arranged to have coffee with PWP’s founder, Dannielle Hayes. There had been talk of an oral history, work on the archives, but the meeting was left casual, the topics open. We met at a bistro near her apartment in the East Village. With close-cropped blond hair and black frame glasses, Hayes was stylish and smart, but without the “better than€ attitude that sometimes comes with accomplished New [continue reading...]
Out There in the Fields…
Out There in the Fields… He came down from the Bronx in a block of ice. Nobody saw him for a while because there was a cold snap on and it wasn’t over yet. The weeks from the holiday season through mid-January 1973 had been raw and unforgiving. But on Wednesday, January 17th, the weather began to improve. Darleen Rubin, a freelance photographer (The Villager, W, and Women’s Wear Daily), was scheduled to do headshots for an actress. She began the shoot out on the balcony of her Christopher Street apartment, but as the sun brightened, decided to go down to a favorite spot by the river where the light was soft and flattering. It was shaping up to [continue reading...]
A Desk(top) of Our Own
A Desk(top) of Our Own It was different then. Every time I look at early material from the PWP archives, I’m struck by the overwhelming evidence of a different time and a very different way of doing things. It wasn’t so long ago-the group was founded in 1975 and got going in the 80′s-yet everything seems so utterly different. The first thing you notice is paper. Lots of paper, nothing but paper in the earliest folders-reams and reams of it! There are no electronic files-no Word docs, psds, pdfs, CDs, DVDs, e-mail, html, and most of all, no reference to urls. There were no blogs, no instant publishing. Only paper, ideas, and need. If you wanted to communicate [continue reading...]