Eleanor

Both Images entitled Chicago, 1960
'If you choose your subject selectively/intuitively, the camera can write poetry.'
Harry Callahan

Throughout their marriage Harry Callahan would photograph his wife Eleanor to create a highly personal body of work that not only shows his developing creative vision, but also forms a document of Eleanor's life, her physical transformations against the changing living environments and landscapes she inhabits.
The appeal of the Eleanor portraits for me lie in the subject, of course the experimental and skillful cropping that Callahan employs are part and parcel with the strength of the images.

But it is the enigma of Eleanor. Despite the fact her physical body is revealed (she appears nude in many of the pictures), and they are very tender photographs without the slightest shred or hint at the male gaze- woman as object... she is more the woman as glorified, maternal, sensual yet pure. As I was saying the enigma issue; something about the real Eleanor remains unreachable and that for me is the all important power of these portraits. Of course they reinstate the fact that collaboration between subject and photographer is key, much like Patti Smith and Mapplethorpe, Eleanor knows what she is doing as she faces and looks directly into the camera lens.

Eleanor Chicago 1947

Chicago 1949