Interesting Images Of Women *No quoting pics - mod note post 1*

Ambersky

I Stumbled across an interesting magazine lately with some stunning photographs of women and it got me thinking about some of the discussions here recently about the ways women visually represent themselves or are represented by others.
I believe art and the visual image is a very powerful means of expression which can touch our emotions, challenge our ways of thinking and maybe even open up new ways of being.
My idea is that this thread be used to post images of women. They could be images of women from a different or not usually seen perspective. They could just be images that mean something personal to the poster. They could be beautiful or ugly, uplifting or sad or just plain funny. Anyway just something different from the usual magazine look how skinny/fat so and so is, or at what she is wearing or who she is with.
Anyone interested?

To start with here is the magazine I stumbled on its called Lenscratch and it was the section entitled Happy Mothers Day Mom that made me think of this
http://www.lenscratch.com/2011/05/happy-mothers-day-mom.html

If anyone else is interested in continuing this could they if possible quote the artist or person who took the image and say a little of what it means to them or why it caught their eye.

Here one images from the Mothers Day Page

Barbara Ciurej, Mother: Betty Ciurej, Kitchen in Evergreen Park, Illinois, "It's an image I took in 1978 but a great tribute to my mother's baking skills and how immensely supportive she was of whatever I undertook, even though she was totally bewildered by what I was doing.

I chose this image because it makes me laugh and it makes me think of the kinds of things I put my own mother through. For example when I was a child I loved fishing but didnt want to kill the fish, just to look at them and feel them and to prolong this experience before I let them go I somtimes brought them home and put them in the bath. My poor mother has found fish in the bath, mice in her bed a hamster in the hotpress and she even overcame her own fear of frogs to catch one for me when I was three. Many of the things I was interested in were a mystery to her but she always supported me bringing me cups of milk when I painted late at night and telling me I was wonderful. Thanks Ma.
So this is the image I choose.

*Mod Note*
Please refrain from quoting pics. If you would like to comment on a picture you can quote the post but please remove the image tags.
Cheers
whoopsadaisydoodles

Fizzlesque

Nice thread, Ambersky

I'm off to look for some images to add.

Fizzlesque

Me again, with apologies for the long delay. I feel like I went to the shops to buy milk for everyone's tea and got sidetracked by the comics, while everyone's tea goes cold waiting for the messenger to return with the milk

Not only am I having trouble choosing from the many fabulous photos I've found in National Geographic, now I'm having trouble getting them to save with a URL so I can post them. I hope this works:



I chose this picture because I grew up without my mother (she died when I was three) and then, when I was 20 years old, I gave birth to a beautiful daughter that, sadly, I felt at the time would have a better life if I had her adopted. Although there were a myriad of reasons for my decision, it was/is the most painful decision I've ever had to make and one of the few things in my life that time simply cannot heal.

With these two things in mind, I've always felt a deep sense of loss in the mother/child bond from both sides of the equation. This picture makes me remember what it feels like to be both the mother, doing the best she can for her child, and the child feeling safe and protected by its mother, for as long as the mother has it within her power to keep her child protected.

Truley

The daughter of the house makes soda bread, Aran Islands, 1974



This one is stunning...




Girl with Shawl, Connemara 1913

PK2008

Migrant Mother- a defining image of the American Great Depression:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Owens_Thompson

This quote from John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath sums up the photo for me....


".........She looked out into the sunshine. Her full face was not soft; it was controlled, kindly. Her hazel eyes seemed to have experienced all possible tragedy and to have mounted pain and suffering like steps into a high calm and a superhuman understanding. She seemed to know, to accept, to welcome her position, the citadel of the family, the strong place that could not be taken. And since her husband and the children could not know hurt or fear unless she acknowledged hurt and fear, she had practiced denying them in herself. And since, when a joyful thing happened, they looked to see whether joy was on her, it was her habit to build up laughter out of inadequate materials. But better than joy was calm. Imperturbability could be depended upon. And from her great and humble position in the family she had taken dignity and a clean calm beauty. From her position as healer, her hands had grown sure and cool and quiet; from her position as arbiter she had become as remote and faultless in judgment as a goddess. She seemed to know that if she swayed the family shook, and if she ever really deeply wavered or despaired the family would fall, the family will to function would be gone.”

Fizzlesque

This picture is both beautiful - the amazing colours of the fabrics, the perfect form of the sand - and, at the same time, astounding.



"Desert Crossing, Rajasthan, India" from National Geographic.

LenaClaire

I have liked this photo for a long time. It makes me think of the body as an instrument. It is beautiful, graceful and will do amazing things if we treat it well.



The photo is Le Violon d'Ingres by Man Ray

krudler

this is pretty iconic:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_girl

Ickle Magoo

I'm always fascinated by the "giraffe women" of the Kayan people who make my complaining about tottering around in stilettos in the name of fashion look spectacularly lame in comparison...

py2006

PK2008 wrote: »

Migrant Mother- a defining image of the American Great Depression:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/54/Lange-MigrantMother02.jpg/461px-Lange-MigrantMother02.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Owens_Thompson

That is a fantastic image! It stuck with me for a long time after seeing it! it is so powerful.

krudler

Dian Fossey:



Rosa Parks:



this is a very cool follow up to that picture, the historical significance of this image is massive when you think of the things black people weren't allowed do in America not that long ago (its the same bus) : http://i.huffpost.com/gen/574976/original.jpg

Wibbs

py2006 wrote: »

That is a fantastic image! It stuck with me for a long time after seeing it! it is so powerful.

The scary thing about that image is that it shows the stresses that lady was under for a long time as she was only she's 32/3(IIRC) in that photo.

Rosa Parks was an amazing human being. 99% of people just go with the flow, or are too busy trying to get into, or stay in the boat to rock it. Not Ms Parks. She quietly and with dignity said no and followed that up with the simplest and most profound and damning of no's.

Sea Filly

Have always loved this photo, a curious mix of modest and risqué:



Apparently Miss Keeler wasn't happy in this photo shoot, I think it shows!

spurious

I took this in Poland a couple of years ago. I've always liked it.
The old pals sitting in the market place chatting, passing remarks, setting the world to rights.
The two fairly substantial ladies like bookends, with the little tiny one squashed in the middle. The array of various walking aids is kind of cool too.
We lose so much of the life experiences and wisdom of older women (and men) these days.

Daftendirekt

Russian punk rockers Pussy Riot, protesting against Putin outside a Moscow cathedral. Two of them were arrested after this and are now facing seven years in prison on a trumped up charge.

Note the snow and lack of warm clothes. (Also, the lack of a drummer.)

Da Shins Kelly

I love this picture. She looks like a tough cookie, which makes me sad cos she's so young.

Fenian Army

Linda Kearns arrest in her own words;

I was driving my car on the night of November 20th, 1920, at about 11.30pm. The car contained, besides myself, three young men and a certain amount of 'stuff' - 10 rifles, 4 revolvers, and 500 rounds of ammunition, to be exact. It was a very dark night, and we were going steadily along the quiet country road. My hands were on the wheel, my eyes looking ahead, intent only on my driving, when suddenly, like a thunder-clap, came the order to halt. How clearly it all comes back to me - the surrounding darkness, which our lights made more black, the men sitting tensely beside me, and then the silence broken by the sharp, quick word -'Halt!' And again - 'Halt! Damn you, halt!'


I stopped the car, and we were immediately surrounded by a crowd of the most savage and undisciplined men which it has ever being my misfortune to meet. They were all drunk, shouting and talking together, and no one seemed to be in command. They were a mixed lot, comprising military, police and Black and Tans. My three companions were at once pulled violently out of the car and searched, and the automatic pistol which the Commandant had in his possession was taken from him immediately. The three of them were very badly used, and it was impossible not to admire them for their coolness and self-control.


All was confusion and darkness, save where the lights of the cars revealed now and again some of their drunken and savage faces. Various orders were given and countermanded. Some one shouted 'Shoot them!' and shots were fired around us. I heard one of my companions say: 'Don't shoot the girl!' but one of the police said: 'Oh, we can't leave her to tell the tale!' The boys with me gave their names and addresses, one of them adding that he was a soldier of the Republic, for which he got a blow across the face, and in spite of my own hazardous position I was constrained to admire him, he behaved with such courage and coolness. Indeed, all three of my comrades were splendid, and all their thoughts even then were for me.


Meanwhile, the noise made by the Crown forces was deafening - it was like Bedlam let loose, and there was no discipline amongst them, for the Head Constable in charge of the police and Black and Tans seemed to have absolutely no control over his men, while the officer in charge of the khaki-clad lot appeared afraid to give them an order. This pandemonium went on for about half an hour, and then I was put back into my car and driven away in the company of three men, either police or Black and Tans, I do not know which, as the confusion and noise were very stupifying. The others were flung into the lorry, and we all met later in the barracks.

In times of peril: leaves from the diary of Nurse Linda Kearns from Easter week, 1916, to Mountjoy, 1921

Shortly after escaping. Mae Burke, Eithne Coyle and Linda Kearns, Carlow 1921. Notice that they are standing on the Union Jack flag

Linda did time in a number of Irish prisons before being sent to Walton Prison in Liverpool, where she went on hungerstrike. From here she was sent to Mountjoy Prison.

In The Jangle of the Keys, her highly regarded personal history of her time in a variety of British and Free State run Irish prisons, Margaret Buckley wrote at length about the 1921 escape from Mountjoy.

“Linda Kearns was largely responsible for the planning of the sensational Mountjoy escape, and entered with great glee into organising it”

A sympathetic wardress had seen to it that the girls were able to get their hands on a wax-mold of the key needed for their escape.

“It was Hallowe’en. Word was sent out; signals agreed on; and time and place fixed…”

The female prisoners were participating in a football match, Cork versus the Rest of Ireland. The Rest of Ireland won, but that was irrelevant. The prisoners created plenty of noise, and the four female prisoners plotting their escape seized the moment. Linda Kearns, Eithne Coyle, Mae Burke and Eileen Keogh made their move. Throwing a small perfume bottle over the wall at the agreed spot, a rope ladder was returned. Linda went first, due to ill-health, followed by Eileen Keogh, Mae Burke and lastly Eithne Coyle. Linda Kearns would find shelter at an IRA training camp in Carlow until the signing of the Anglo Irish Treaty.

More detail on her life can be read here:
http://comeheretome.wordpress.com/2010/04/17/the-great-escape-linda-kearns/

Truly a great patriot, a courageous woman who has been somewhat omitted from the history books. A fantastic picture imo, has always stuck with me.

Sea Filly

Janey, mine is the only photo so far to get no thanks. Mort!

Earthhorse

Da Shins Kelly wrote: »

I love this picture. She looks like a tough cookie, which makes me sad cos she's so young.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_UcLH_I9pqWs/TD9cejpuHTI/AAAAAAAAABY/5ZVNBTjjZZ4/s1600/girl_smoking.jpg

Reminds me of this photo. Speaks for itself.

Malari

I love this one:



It's just a poignant picture of young adult angst on the girl's face, and the comforting mother's gaze into the mid-distance is like she's remembering going through similar herself. To me it's the absolute picture of the phase where you start being friends instead of solely mother and daughter

ibarelycare

This series of photographs won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007. They were posted in the "Photos that Shook the World" thread and moved me to tears.



"Derek refuses to take pain medications because he fears damaging his organs. He rages at his mother on April 28, 2006, blaming her for not making him healthier. "You have to calm down and help me help you," Cyndie says."



The rest of the photos are here, well worth a look.

Da Shins Kelly

ibarelycare wrote: »

This series of photographs won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007. They were posted in the "Photos that Shook the World" thread and moved me to tears.

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk295/zingdan/Index/Yeee7/836w9d3.jpg

"Derek refuses to take pain medications because he fears damaging his organs. He rages at his mother on April 28, 2006, blaming her for not making him healthier. "You have to calm down and help me help you," Cyndie says."



The rest of the photos are here, well worth a look.

This is pretty much the definition of a fantastic mother.

Sea Filly

Da Shins Kelly wrote: »

I love this picture. She looks like a tough cookie, which makes me sad cos she's so young.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_UcLH_I9pqWs/TD9cejpuHTI/AAAAAAAAABY/5ZVNBTjjZZ4/s1600/girl_smoking.jpg

What is the story behind this photograph?

Fizzlesque

Sea Filly wrote: »

Janey, mine is the only photo so far to get no thanks. Mort!

Be mort no more, Sea Filly - I've only just had a chance to log on again and see what wonderful new additions to the thread there are today, and guess what, I love them all. This is officially my favourite thread on Boards; I love the premise of it, and I love learning what each poster's reasons for choosing their pictures are.

Lyaiera

Sea Filly wrote: »

What is the story behind this photograph?

It's by a woman called Sally Mann. She has a series of photos of her children exploring her hopes, fears, dreams and love for them. To me it's about placing the innocence of youth in a context with growing up and adulthood. A lot of the images are really dark, and extremely challenging to our perceptions of what childhood is for, but I think that's what Sally Mann wanted to get across. And she says she really just recorded her children playing, there was some posing but it was never anything she had to convince her children to do, they were happy to play along and had fun doing it. It was all done around their home near a river, in a very secluded and safe area for children to do as they wished. A sort of typical idea of childhoods running around mad and playing and make believe. I think the crux of the issue was the children often emulated adult behaviour and Mann captures really grown up looks in her children. It's very challenging photography, but very rewarding.

I've only flipped through her book of work in a shop, but I think I've seen most of the images online by now. That book is probably my favourite collection of work.

And if Sally Mann's stuff is my favourite collection, Migrant Mother is my all time favourite picture. It's so powerful, it shows a really strong woman, obviously troubled but stoic for her children and I think she's absolutely beautiful.

Malari

I was just going to say that Migrant Mother was so evocative of the Grapes of Wrath when I saw PK2008 quoted from the book. Amazing picture.

Unregistered39

ibarelycare wrote: »

This series of photographs won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007. They were posted in the "Photos that Shook the World" thread and moved me to tears.

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk295/zingdan/Index/Yeee7/836w9d3.jpg

"Derek refuses to take pain medications because he fears damaging his organs. He rages at his mother on April 28, 2006, blaming her for not making him healthier. "You have to calm down and help me help you," Cyndie says."



The rest of the photos are here, well worth a look.

Oh dear God. I had a look at the other photos. I seem to have something in both my eyes... truly heartwrenching.

Fizzlesque

I very much like your picture, Spurious, and your personal expression of what the picture makes you feel/think. The tiny lady in the middle made me laugh - especially when viewed in your 'bookend' context. I also like the dash of yellow from the flowers, which (in my mind) adds even more jolliness to an already jolly snapshot.

Fenian Army

The pictures are interesting, but I think they are exploitative, taking deliberately controversial/shocking pictures of children who were too young to understand what was going on and showing them to the world.

If I had kids I certainly wouldn't do that, or try to make art out of them. When they are old enough to understand the implications and to meaningfully consent to it then ok.

Not having a go at anyone who likes the pictures, it's just my 2 cents!

Contessa Raven

ibarelycare wrote: »

This series of photographs won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007. They were posted in the "Photos that Shook the World" thread and moved me to tears.

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk295/zingdan/Index/Yeee7/836w9d3.jpg

"Derek refuses to take pain medications because he fears damaging his organs. He rages at his mother on April 28, 2006, blaming her for not making him healthier. "You have to calm down and help me help you," Cyndie says."



The rest of the photos are here, well worth a look.

I was crying my eyes out by the end of those pictures. I've never seen a photograph that moved me to tears like that before.

Lucyfur

ibarelycare wrote: »

This series of photographs won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007. They were posted in the "Photos that Shook the World" thread and moved me to tears.

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk295/zingdan/Index/Yeee7/836w9d3.jpg
"Derek refuses to take pain medications because he fears damaging his organs. He rages at his mother on April 28, 2006, blaming her for not making him healthier. "You have to calm down and help me help you," Cyndie says."



The rest of the photos are here, well worth a look.

Jesus. That is so heartbreaking sad:(

Wibbs

and heartbreakingly uplifting and optimistic about how bloody wonderfu and strongl people can actually be.

SChique00

Okay, while it's technically only a promotional photo, I fell in love with this picture as equally as I fell in love with the novel and its movie adaptation.
"The Virgin Suicides" is a dreamy compilation of the hazy memories of a group of local teenage boys (now middle-aged men), concerning their beautiful and elusive neighbours, the five Lisbon sisters. The book is told from the boys' perspective and charts the untimely demise of the sisters as one by one, they take their own lives.
But I digress from my thoughts on the picture - for me, this snapshot epitomises every girl's struggle with the transition from childhood to adulthood... The frame is filled with contrasting imagery - for example, the girls' innocence (or rather, inexperience) is shown in their flowing white gowns, but this is juxtapositioned with their dark, sultry gazes toward the camera, hinting at their ethereal, wise, otherworldy nature and mannerisms. The blurry, dreamlike quality of the shot expresses the exquisite fragility of womanhood, while the brassiere strewn across the crucifix symbolises the conflict and turbulence that can flame up when the girls' budding womanhood is suffocated and forbidden to bloom by their authoritarian mother...

I love the book, I love the film, and I love this photo - highly recommended (by me!) as the story is a celebration of womanhood, and the consequences of it being stifled...

Lyaiera

Fenian Army wrote: »

The pictures are interesting, but I think they are exploitative, taking deliberately controversial/shocking pictures of children who were too young to understand what was going on and showing them to the world.

If I had kids I certainly wouldn't do that, or try to make art out of them. When they are old enough to understand the implications and to meaningfully consent to it then ok.

Not having a go at anyone who likes the pictures, it's just my 2 cents!

I don't know if you're talking about the Sally Mann pictures or the pictures of the dying child. If you're talking about the Sally Mann pictures, then I can understand. They are extremely challenging and provocative, at least the results are. Sally Mann has said she never put her children into those scenarios, not that they were dangerous scenarios in the first place, they were always safe and the drive behind the photos was always the children's play. That it was the children that were experimenting and playing with their own interpretations of what it means to be an adult and grown up. I certainly remember walking up and down the garden of my childminder's house with a friend pretending we were old and married. I remember puffing on chocolate cigarettes (which have rightly been banned.) Kids understand the world through acting out what they see, and playing with their own ideas of what it means. That's all those children were doing, and Sally Mann recorded it and was struck (before, during and after) about how adult and grown up some of the poses they struck and looks they gave were. The house and garden were safe, the children were happy and the children all grew up well adjusted and talk happily of their time playing in those gardens. It's simply provocative because Sally Mann is a really good photographer who kept photographing and knew how to capture the right moment. It's adults who read nefariousness into it, and I think that somehow betrays our doubts about adulthood.

Edit: If you look at it, she's wearing a summer dress and holding a chocolate cigarette, normal things, but the pose she's striking, emulating how a smoking woman looks is evocative of sex, there's more to it than that especially her eyes, which are a look of disdain and tiredness for the world, but really it's a look of, "More photos Mom?!". Her brother is in the background and it looks as though he's almost about to hang himself, a really adult thought about death and suicide, but really he just set up a ladder and climbed it. And her sister is just looking on at her brother wondering what he's up to, but it could also be seen that she's passively watching a man die. If you break the image down, analyse it and look at it like a child then it's actually an image of playing, and a really a reflection on how we see the world.

Fenian Army

Lyaiera wrote: »

I don't know if you're talking about the Sally Mann pictures or the pictures of the dying child. If you're talking about the Sally Mann pictures, then I can understand. They are extremely challenging and provocative, at least the results are. Sally Mann has said she never put her children into those scenarios, not that they were dangerous scenarios in the first place, they were always safe and the drive behind the photos was always the children's play. That it was the children that were experimenting and playing with their own interpretations of what it means to be an adult and grown up. I certainly remember walking up and down the garden of my childminder's house with a friend pretending we were old and married. I remember puffing on chocolate cigarettes (which have rightly been banned.) Kids understand the world through acting out what they see, and playing with their own ideas of what it means. That's all those children were doing, and Sally Mann recorded it and was struck (before, during and after) about how adult and grown up some of the poses they struck and looks they gave were. The house and garden were safe, the children were happy and the children all grew up well adjusted and talk happily of their time playing in those gardens. It's simply provocative because Sally Mann is a really good photographer who kept photographing and knew how to capture the right moment. It's adults who read nefariousness into it, and I think that somehow betrays our doubts about adulthood.

It was the Sally Mann ones of course...

My understanding is that for some of the pictures she got them to pose.

While the behavior may be natural I too messed around with chocolate fags (they cant be banned that long, I'm in my early 20s!) its more exploiting this childish innocence by taking, and more to the point, publishing deliberately shocking and provocative pictures of children, who could not have in any meaningful way consented to it, that I don't like.

You can say that its the person looking at the pictures who reads stuff into them etc, but it was obvious that there would be such a reaction, that was what was sought. And to exploit your children to that end is in my book at least, bad form.

Ambersky

I was looking for a photo to post that said something about the non traditional gender images of women I am interested in and I found loads particularly by lesbian photographers.

There were loads of broody sexy ones but this is the one I finally came up with. Its a photo of Ellen Degeneres by Annie Leibovitz from the Hide/Seek Difference and Desire in American Portraiture Exhibition. http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/dec/05/hide-seek-gay-art-smithsonian



I like it because I suppose I can relate to it. In the photo Ellen has the white face and tossled hair of a clown while wearing boxer shorts and a sparkly bikini top. Brilliant!
She's holding her breasts in a kind of grabbing way that also looks a bit like shes saying what do I do with these. Thats the way I feel a lot of the time.

Da Shins Kelly

Fenian Army wrote: »

It was the Sally Mann ones of course...

My understanding is that for some of the pictures she got them to pose.

While the behavior may be natural I too messed around with chocolate fags (they cant be banned that long, I'm in my early 20s!) its more exploiting this childish innocence by taking, and more to the point, publishing deliberately shocking and provocative pictures of children, who could not have in any meaningful way consented to it, that I don't like.

You can say that its the person looking at the pictures who reads stuff into them etc, but it was obvious that there would be such a reaction, that was what was sought. And to exploit your children to that end is in my book at least, bad form.

I don't think it's particularly exploitive. It's an artistic shot. It's not like fashion photographers who take pictures of young girls for fashion publications in order to make money. The photo actually has some meaning. It's a child's perspective on the adult world. It's not us viewing them as sexual objects or clothes horses like the likes of Vogue or such might. It's about how these children see us. Yes, maybe it makes people uncomfortable to see how children imitate sometimes less than perfect aspects of adulthood, but this is the real world. Her children were complicit in the shots, and they're shots that were done with their own mother. It's not like she was pushing her children into anything, or making them do it with strangers for money-making purposes or something, which would be exploitive. I would be very surprised indeed if her children felt themselves, years on, that they had been exploited.

Adults see things very differently anyway. We tend to read into these things way more than is necessary and derive our own meanings.

Kooli

I love love love this thread, keep 'em coming ladies!

xzanti

ibarelycare

Is that image real xsanti?

Morag

xzanti wrote: »

http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/4286/footw.jpg

Actually as a interesting picture of a woman, I don't like this pic.
In that context I find it dehumanising.

xzanti

ibarelycare wrote: »

Is that image real xsanti?

Probably photoshopped but I think it's sweet.

Susie_Q

Looks mad photoshopped.

Yeah of course it's photoshopped. I find it a bit weird.

Honey-ec

krudler wrote: »

this is pretty iconic:

http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/015/cache/afghan-girl-portrait_1563_990x742.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_girl

They ran another feature on her a few years ago. This picture was taken 17 years after the original, she's only about 28 or 29 in it, she's not sure of her own age.

Here is another set of photos. This young woman was dying of cancer and wanted to get married before she died. She died only five days later





Full set here: http://bop.nppa.org/2006/still_photography/winners/OES/67966/134496.html

ibarelycare

iffy_2007

ibarelycare wrote: »

This series of photographs won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007. They were posted in the "Photos that Shook the World" thread and moved me to tears.

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk295/zingdan/Index/Yeee7/836w9d3.jpg
"Derek refuses to take pain medications because he fears damaging his organs. He rages at his mother on April 28, 2006, blaming her for not making him healthier. "You have to calm down and help me help you," Cyndie says."



The rest of the photos are here, well worth a look.

That's the most heartbreaking story I have read in awhile. Its a cruel world we live in when we see people who have to go through so much pain & suffering especially when they are so young. It makes you realise how minuscule some of your problems are. Tears still coming even thinking about it!

krudler

Sharrow wrote: »

Actually as a interesting picture of a woman, I don't like this pic.
In that context I find it dehumanising.

dehumanising?

Semele

I've always been fascinated by this photo (1947?) of Evelyn McCabe, taken by a passing photography student minutes after she committed suicide after jumping from the 86th floor of the Empire State Building and landed on a parked car. It's such a violent and decisive death yet she looks so peaceful and beautiful. The photo has inspired music and literature and yet so little is known about the woman herself and what pressures she was under to lead her to suicide in such a dramatic manner.

She was only 23 and engaged to be married. She had just returned from a visit to her fiance, in which he reported she seemed happy and normal. She had written a suicide note that had been partly crossed out, reading

“I don’t want anyone in or out of my family to see any part of me. Could you destroy my body by cremation? I beg of you and my family – don’t have any service for me or remembrance for me. My fiance asked me to marry him in June. I don’t think I would make a good wife for anybody. He is much better off without me. Tell my father, I have too many of my mother’s tendencies.”

The most information known about her was collected here

Ambersky

ibarelycare I loved your photo. My mother had a breast removed 22 years ago. They said the prognosis was bad for her as the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes and would probably reoccur. It did come back but something like 15 years later and she seems to be beating that too. At 80 years of age she guesses something is going to get her so why worry. It is wonderful how often breast cancer is now a survivable disease and may those medical advances continue.
Images of women with one breast are very important because they help with the fear and isolation and shame of something happening to your body that we dont usually see and that people can be repulsed by.
I spend three weeks at the Michigan Womens Music Festival with 6,ooo other women. It was an experience and of course there are criticisms of the event but I had a chance to see and do things there that had been impossible for me anywhere else than in this women only space in the woods. Some of the women felt safe enough in that environment they chose to cast off all or some of their clothes. I saw women of all ages, all sizes, colours as well as some women with physical disabilities. One of the most moving experiences for me was seeing women who had had mastectomys single and double walking around topless. I might include more photos from Michygan later but for now heres this one.
I like it because she is an older woman with a real body, middle age spread and all, which is another image we dont see and she has the "ovaries" to go and put a tatoo over her scar. This is the kind of courage and creativity I regularly saw at Michigan.
Leslie Lohman is the photographer.
http://www.leslielohman.org/newsletter/No20/haynes20_1.htm