Dirty Girl Things

Monday, August 20, 2007

Number Eighty-Eight

Louise Dahl-Wolfe

I believe that the camera is a medium of light, that one actually paints with light. In using the spotlights with reflecting lights, I could control the quality of the forms revealed to build a composition. Photography, to my mind, is not a fine art. It is splendid for recording a period of time, but it has definite limitations, and the photographer certainly hasn’t the freedom of the painter. One can work with taste and emotion and create an exciting arrangement of significant form, a meaningful photograph, but a painter has the advantage of putting something in the picture that isn’t there or taking something out that is there. I think this makes painting a more creative medium. — Louise Dahl-Wolfe, 1984

Louise Dahl-Wolfe was one of the most celebrated photographers of the 30s, 40s, and 50s. Her work had enormous impact on great photographers such as Horst, Avedon, and Penn. Working in the heyday of Harper’s Bazaar, she pioneered the use of natural lighting in fashion photography and shooting on location and out of doors.

As a staff photographer for Harper’s Bazaar from 1936 through 1958, Louise Dahl-Wolfe introduced a witty, relaxed, and natural aspect to fashion photography and, in the process, helped “define the post-war look of American women.”

She preferred portraiture to fashion photography and was a pioneer in the technique of color photography. She made memorable portrait photographs of leading figures from politics and the arts including Mae West, Cecil Beaton, Eudora Welty, W.H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Orson Welles, Carson McCullers, Edward Hopper, Colette and Josephine Baker.

Tom Neff created a superb documentary Louise Dahl-Wolfe: Painting with Light highlighting Dahl-Wolfe’s career, which can be seen on The Documentary Channel.

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“California Desert” & “Colette”