“If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given. It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument.”
~ Eve Arnold
Eve was diminutive in size but a giant amongst 20th Century photojournalists. Taking up photography as a single mother at the age of 38 years old, her drive and determination and not the least her prodigious talent, cast an enormous shadow that very few photographers (mostly men) found hard to keep up with.
Everyone relaxed in front of her lens and her empathy and ease with people from all professions and walks of life allowed her to gain their trust. She photographed migrant workers and movie stars, Malcolm X, Marilyn Monroe and Joseph McCarthy, veiled women in the Middle East and field workers in China.
But this is my favorite image of hers, shot outside the old Metropolitan Opera house in New York which evokes such glamour and style from a long lost era, which she graciously made for me a year or so before she passed away in London. She had a wonderful apartment in my favorite street in London, Mount Street, and to have tea with her and listen to her stories was a rare gift.
