Abstract: The essay examines representations of old age in photographic
portraiture, focusing on works by such prominent American photographers of the
last few decades as Nicholas Nixon, Richard Avedon, and Fazal Sheikh. It shows
how the new aging studies, in conjunction with critical photo-history, critique
American images of aging as narratives of mere decline. Visual culture, these
scholars point out, conflates self and appearance, makes youth a fetish,
marginalizes the old, and thus plays an important role in a much larger social
and cultural devaluation of old age.
This essay questions this assumption, arguing that the camera's gaze doesn't
necessarily identify the old as confused and in decline. Close readings of
photographic images and series demonstrate how photographers like Avedon or
Sheikh have created less constricting, more flexible representations of the
old that transcend the problematic nature of the normative gaze. (Ribbat,
2011)
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- Ribbat, C. (2011). "Out of it?" Old Age and Photographic
Portraiture. Amerikastudien/American Studies, 56(1), 67-84.
- photograph by Gil Rigoulet (1970s) via
What!! Where did you find this photo? Who's the photographer? It has a sort of Vivian Maier touch to it. Brilliant.
ReplyDeleteGil Rigoulet - a French photographer who took pictures of England in the 1970s.
DeleteI've added the information to the posting now. And, yes, totally(!) Vivian Maier, thought of her too, when I found the photo.
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