Woman; Photographer Elsa Dorfman

Yeah me. Me me me. An in-depth exploration of the world with. Good evening and welcome to woman. I have a very special guest this evening. She is Elsa Dorfman is a photographer who lives and works in Cambridge Massachusetts. She is the author of Elsa's House book a woman's photo journal. She was a Radcliffe fellow from 1972 to 1974. Elsa has many interesting insights. Welcome to woman. Thank you see and see some examples of your work.

Sure. This is a picture of Anne Sexton that I took. About a month before she died I took it in her house in her studio wish she were. That must have been interesting because she was also a Radcliffe fellow right. Right and she was she really liked photographers and we got along very well and she was in a very good mood. And. It worked out very nicely and she let me. Really do whatever I wanted it was very corporate. We sat and talked the whole time. This is Jesse Bernard who's been on the program. It's very nice. Thank you. And these are friends they're identical twins. And I took it in the kitchen of Beverly Corbett who's a friend of mine. Did you pose that. No they were just talking to each other and I happened to bring my camera to the party and I just snapped. So. There's a painting behind them which is why it looks sort of from intact. And this is Winnie Laurence who's a welfare rights organizer in Boston and I took that for an

underground newspaper. It's probably. My best picture I think it's wild. It's incredible and I only got $10 for taking two pictures and I know I do or is going so I think it's a good example of how you never know we will get you this picture. Also I think one of the amazing things about you is that you never picked up a camera until you were twenty eight years old. And I didn't and I went to Europe for my junior year and my mother pleaded with me to take pictures and she said we're spending all this money send us pictures. And I didn't pick up a kid time. And now when I think of it I could shoot myself because Paris has really changed. But when I was 28 I was working at this place where we developed elementary school stuff. I'd already been an elementary school teacher 962 and was. A failure because I would need socks. And I couldn't get my kids to see the flag by 8:30 and I forgot to put under guard in the salute because they had changed since we'd been in elementary school so I was a failure at that. And

so I was working at this place that made materials to teachers. And I did some of the testing so I was photographed. So I think that sort of. Prepped me for photography and the photographer gave me a camera. And showed me how to use it and I loved it. And I was desperate for something to do and. I just. Decided I was a photographer I announced it. Everybody felt comfortable. And mostly I was desperate. And photography I think so. There are a lot of people that would just flip. You're saying photography is easy I mean it's so mechanized. But you really can learn everything you need to know in certainly in a week. And then. It's just doing it. It's not like deciding you're going to write a symphony really accessible. I think that's why it's such a folk art. When you started did you think I'm going to have a career

now or I'm just going to take some pictures. What do you think I want. I. Decided I was going to have a career. I mediately immediately without because this was. It was song Darcy not to be anything. I wasn't married and I wasn't like doing anything so you had to be called something. People said What are you doing. And in those days it was mortifying there to be and not to be married. I mean so I had to have a thing so. Photographer people stop short. It was like saying you are a poet. I mean I think that. If I had decided to be a poet it would have been serve the same purpose I grabbed it. And I was lucky because I grabbed it and it worked on me. It could have been that I grabbed it. And it was a catastrophe but in fact it felt good and it was so much fun. And it's very neat photography. You don't have to put in a long

apprenticeship. I don't feel like knocks what I do because I say that it's easy. It's really easy. How did your parents respond I mean it's been a lot of money educating you. You should have heard I'm sure my mother will say that you know she said that a thousand times after all those years of college you had to be a photographer. Whoever heard that was as bad as not being married. You know I've done it again. But. Now she's you know very proud but she couldn't understand what I was doing. And. You know and you know I didn't make much money at it so it wasn't the kind of thing. That she could. Use it was a lot of money attached. Is it true that your photographs are unique because you you don't we touch them. I guess so there are a lot of photographers who we touch but I don't. I don't little I don't sort of make a religion out of it but I've just never gotten

into it. So I guess that is something I think another thing that's unique is that I'm not afraid to say it. Or to just take them and I don't sort of make a big deal out of. Taking them and their only photographs and. I think that since men have infiltrated photography and come. Into photography and sort of dominate photography. It's bad form to say it's easier it's just photography. You sort of have to. Head it up and. Well. What are his very important art. All that stuff. But. In fact. You know I do take. How do you describe what you do I mean do you think about it a lot. It has a very special quality to it. I think about it all the time but it's a kind of thinking about. It's just always going on and conscious and. I'm always thinking about my work and how I want to put my work together and what I wanted to

be in the form I wanted to take. And I do that all the time when I'm sitting or talking or in the morning cleaning up and stuff. But when the minute comes to taking a picture I'm not thinking about that at all. It's sort of like. A reservoir that's me that's operating but I'm. Thinking about it when I actually have a camera in my hand. I'm really guided by my own conscious sounds sort of mystical but. I think I take my best pictures when I'm not. My head isn't cluttered with them. So what you've done is really you've created something for yourself outside of the system. Obviously your teaching didn't work out. If you couldn't. Get that together. I really DID I JUST. I hated the idea of being unhappy and the idea of being depressed and. There was only sort of one thing to doing that was to do something you know.

Lucky to find a camera and find it accessible to do it into like it. And it really suited my temperament because I'm very social and you go out in the world and you take pictures. And. I. Think because I like to have such literary head I always want to be a writer so being so literary I could put it together. So it worked I. Feel very grateful. I get the feeling that you would like to turn all women on to Fatah. It's terrific I think. You learn a lot about your life with photography it's a great way of documenting its own. Photography is only like a hundred and fifty years old. So there are only like four generations who can look at pictures and keep track of their lives and see what they look like. Like our great grandparents had no idea all this personal history that's involved. In photography. And. I find that. When I feel down or just born

an adventure going out with my camera really turns me on and turns other people on they love to take it. And. I myself am in very urban and don't respond to the woods and stuff. But I know that a lot of people get pleasure taking beautiful pictures of trees and leaves and rocks and. So I think that really. I like to take pictures of people. I fw. I hear people great. I love it. Take the. Chair. Nearest I love the mirror and take pictures. So. I get all this pleasure and I think. It's fun and it's expensive. Can you support yourself then I can. I really kind of put myself by indexing books. I think that. If I

were a hustler. I think that probably I could. But I just don't have the adrenaline for it and I don't want to. Also I don't want to become a business like Elsa Dorfman. Firths. I just I just wouldn't be able to do the bookkeeping. So this is sort of perfect. It's a real. Way of sort of being a quote artist and having sort of. An offbeat life and getting work done and having adventures and. Inventing sort of a way of living that's comfortable. I mean I've seen Margaret Bourke-White but I just don't have the. Organization. You're about to start a project in which you're going to do a series on women. Yes I I'm really attracted to women I always had a lot of oncet I liked in my grandmothers and I have my mother in my two sisters. So. I've been taking pictures of women for a long time and knowing when to pull them together. Let's take a look

at some more. OK. This is my friend Harvey civil rights grandmother Lily So the way we took her in Miami She's 84 and she's just going to the beauty parlor where she goes every Saturday in the broiling heat. And this is the weekend. This is Nikki Giovanni. And I took her at home about three years ago. That's lovely. And. This is a woman Genevieve Bono who I know who stopped me in my car at a red light. I give her a ride home. And luckily I had my camera with me. And I asked her if I could take a picture and she really couldn't refuse since I'd given her a ride home. And I could only take two. You know it's a miracle I mean. I don't it's a miracle and it came. Could very easily not of. And. This woman is a freaky and she's 19 and I

just was walking in the Harvard Square one Sunday and again I just I don't always carry my camera but I happened to have it. And I asked her if I could take her picture. She said sure. So. There are really a million images out there on the street and if I carry with me all the time. I would be able to take a picture every day almost every hour. But I'm. But I sort of relax and. Just mention it. Tell people that it's out there. It really does. Do you think we should use photography photography for ideally. I like using it as a way of getting into the world and finding out there and making life. But I think it's a lot by keeping track of life and how people change. I think it really takes time. I think

time. Is really like a part of a photograph. Time goes by. Because. In fact. They take on a time. They don't have it. So I think it's a good track in life it's history. When of year when of your future project is you taking an inventory of all the objects in your house. That's really. A good example. I'm terribly disorganized. And I cannot stand being disorganized and when I say in decisions you have to step over things in my house I know where. The floor is like a mosaic of things and I can't stand it. You know I have enough sort of. My mother was such a good housekeeper the Jewish housekeeper overload that I feel so guilty. So I think if I took a picture of

everything. That would help me. Organize like a very pragmatic sort of. But it would be fun. You know get good pictures and I may be able to write something that would be fun. So it's serving all the purposes really. Photography can serve it's being sort of like therapeutic. It's sort of like a. Quote creative exercise to sort of put control. In my life I think photography is very good at work is you controlling your environment when you take a picture. I think when I get my bedroom. Near I probably have a thousand things. I bet everybody. I mean I had no idea the number. Here. Really are going to take photographs of everything everything. And I'm sure a lot a lot of stuff. I have trinkets. I have a piggy bank that somebody gave me one thousand sixty.

Driving caring for apartment to apartment. So I. You know I think. That one of the effects of a lot of. My mother's always buying bargains and I have. Hundreds hundreds. 20 bathrooms. That my mother his. Wife. You know if I have to take a picture of each one of those you can be sure that I knew. One of the things you don't like to do is. Manipulate your photographs. I wish she would tell a story about the insects in photograph and how you just wouldn't manipulate that photo. Shoot. Can we switch back to you know I think we probably better not. Well in the end sex and then she had a picture on the mantel of Sylvia Plath who had been a friend of hers. And. She had all kinds of mixed feelings about I would say that she was sort of competitive with and it was on the mantle.

And it was really tempting to take a picture of him and and sort of like the picture like that be like great little riddle to the world. But she never went near the mantle and that in a way that would make a good picture and I was. Asking her although I know there's no question that if I asked her she would have done it. But I would never dream. I think. I tend to sort of. Let the people. Unwind. And whatever happens happens and not being. Manipulated. Here been a few times when I was stupid about it. Like in Hellman who I adore. I was really excited when I took her picture and she was sitting in front of a window. And I was too excited and too nervous and too everything to ask her. To move. And of course none of the pictures came out and it just washed and lining the one thing. It's hard to take pictures of people in front of

windows. And I could just. Shoot myself to this day I was so excited and she had the most marvelous time I did a kid in the House spoke to her I just. Listened. And she never said anything awful to me. But I mean she spent a whole. Afternoon. Elsa do you think the camera tells the truth. Absolutely no. Absolutely. But we're all afraid of that. You know God is that what I look like. But the camera in her console lacked I mean even the picture of your. You're isolating what you take. And since we live sort of everything is a continuum and we're responding to sort of like a pattern of what's happening like a river. In Pictures like a drop of water that you've taken out of the river to look at under a microscope. I actually don't think it's real live pictures. You know you could take 20 pictures in

in two minutes in this so different. I think it's just. It's I mean that's what I love about it. It's not really a draw. I have a quote. From you and I don't know if you know that I have this or not. And you can disembowel know much about if you like. But you said My life is an anti depressant strategy. Yes. That's one thing about going out with a camera. And having an adventure. And doing something and I think that's why I know that I was a photographer it felt right and I really needed something. And. And. I believe that I think everything I do is depress and strategy the inventory is an antidepressant because it really depresses me that my house is messy. And I don't know how to cope with it. So my in my way I am a photographer coping with it is if I take a picture of everything and I put it in a book I have a picture of everything that will help me organize it.

I have no idea like how many cups I have in this a cup hearings a cup here. And would be different if I if I didn't mind it. But I think that sort of anomaly I can't stand it. But on the other hand I'm not frantically putting all the cups in the cupboard. I figure I mean I'm sure that there are people who know how many. How many pure underpants. I have no idea. I have. You could ask I have no idea how many Anything I have I have like five because I'm always looking for. So why is so depressing. He once did a rather outrageous thing outrageous to your fellow photographers and. You took a cart and you into Harvard Square. I'd love you to tell about that. OK in that's in that sort of fits in with this whole thing you go to prison because that was the time it was. Just before Christmas about three years ago and I was sort of at Lucent because working in the arts is really very lonely. And you know

I mean like today it's really terrific talking to you about my work but basically I'm at home working by myself taking pictures and nobody's fainting with delight in front of them. And I was it was sort of Christmas which I think a lot of people get time and I just needed something. So I had all these photographs lying around the house and I put them in plastic bags and made this big sign I had made by a delicatessen sign maker and said Elsa Dorfman photograph singular opportunity. It's a fellow Radcliffe Institute which made everybody pass out at Red Cross which I loved and it said the first year I sold them to 250. And I put them in plastic $2 and it's incredible it's incredible. And I. Have. Talked supermarket into letting you borrow one of the supermarket. And I went to Harvard Square and I sold my photographs are just.

Photographs. Did you hear from people who are working but they thought I was crazy. They'd say. True fifty for further graft I can get mine done at the drug store because I got all kinds of attitudes. With people who knew my work and grab them up because they were such a bargain. And there were photographers who came by and said. You're doing a terrible thing to photography you're ruining photography. Then there was a pure solution put archive photographs next to plastic. And then there were the people who come by and would say who photograph photography. Work. You once had a rather unusual request to dinner and talk about oh yes go right ahead. You ask and I'll tell you. I'd really like you to tell this story rather well. This person is now my friend asked me if I would take a picture of him and his

wife. And I was. Really sort of hesitant. I was terrified Id never done anything like that I'd. Never seen anybody else making me sort of naive. When I told that to a Harvard sophomore. And I knew anybody making love and I was. Terrified. Looked at me. He said. You never sorry. So that. Was really for me quite a shock. And but I needed the money. And my friends who I really expected say oh don't do that it's too freaky like you don't know what's going to happen. Blackmailed also do it do it. Really sing friends. So I did it. I was depressed when I first film I wasn't depressed. And. Sort of like the manipulative I sort of. Rock. We

went to the. Woman's house in New Hampshire and I just really I stood behind my camera. You know I didn't I didn't I mean I I saw I didn't. I didn't I didn't move my head. I didn't. And. It. Will be different now. Now I think it probably will again. I think I would move around and I have different ideas of what I would do. Do you think that women take photographs of women differently especially women. No question I think. They just look at women especially the naked women differently. Look at them as a piece. Whatever. It was I don't think that women do in first place women. I just am curious about things about a woman's body that many curious about.

We were looking at a nude photograph the other day and you tell me now if a woman if a man had taken that he would have focused on differently right. It's just what they curious about our bodies is really. Different. It's just different. Yeah. Women are just beginning to sort of parody. Taking pictures and then the women take pictures of women. Where were. You when Usually when a mental picture of a woman he's in. Try to say sex object. But. It's interesting the machinery's. The way men take pictures of cars just like our car advertisements. Now women is sort of beginning to treat. Some women photographers but it's very hard to do because we're not programmed to look at men's bodies that way taking pictures of men is pure. Pieces. What. Piece

of Me I myself just never think like that. So it's a real. I have to really consciously try and do that. But I question different. So then there is a feminine perspective. Certainly in terms of taking pictures. I think it has to be because if you really believe that people act on your creative work comes out of themselves and. Who they are what's going on in the head and the history in their obsessions. Women have different obsessions and life experiences than men so they really have to be. I think. It's a question you can go into the night asking people. Really talking about it no. I I think. Probably it's very individual. Like there's an Elsa Dorfman. You're mean and. If you had a camera there'd be a CND Elkan. You know.

And we're women. And if we were men maybe we'd have a different. Question. Do you think they can be pornography for women. Just very quickly. Yeah but I think. I think it's sort of like women are too uptight. It's really hard to. Be creative about it. Men have had thousands of years. And so we've got about 10 seconds left let's take a quick look at the last couple of photographs. Production funding provided by public television stations the Ford Foundation and the

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