Jane Bowen:
Born 1925 - Dorset.
"The best pictures are uninvited, they are suddenly there in front of you..easy to see but difficult to catch"
This photograph of Jane is a self portrait taken in a mirror. What I like about this image is the contrast between the background and the subject - Jane has managed to capture the image without flare from a flash (as she hasn't used one), and without any hint of a shadow in the background. It captures the essence of who Jane and what she is about.
Jane worked almost exclusively in black and white photographing some of the most famous people of the 20th century. She strove to use natural light to capture her subjects - situating them close to a window or in a stairwell, or outside. Her aim was to be unobtrusive, to get the sitter to relax and by using only natural light she was able to achieve this 'invisibility' to allow her to capture the essence of a person.
Jane liked to capture the essence of her subjects in way that they felt comfortable - and saw portrait photography as a joint achievement - for example in the image of Sinead O'Conner above. Sinead was renowned for being press shy and the above portrait brings this out through the angle of the head and the lack of eye contact. however the strong light across the face and the tight crop of the photo draw you in.
This picture of Bjork demonstrates further how Jane believed that the process of a great portrait was a combined effort - as well as the skills of the photographer to bring out the personality of the person they needed to be relaxed and you need to be patient waiting for the 'pose' to present itself through some gesture as in Bjorks hands over her face.
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