Frances McLaughlin-Gill United States, 1919-2014

“I believe the physical effort of making a photograph, the virtuous ability, should not be revealed in the result. As with a professional dancer, whose hours of intensive practice in perfection of technique should not be apparent to the audience, the photographer should present to his or her audience the beauty and feeling, motion and emotion- not the technique.”

~ Frances McLaughlin-Gill

I met Franny towards the end of her life. She had amazing style and energy and was one of the first female fashion photographers to break through the glass ceiling of the mostly male dominated field. She was the first female fashion photographer to be put under contract with Vogue by Alexander Liberman. She was only 24 years old at the time. She made photos with enormous energy and wit in a completely naturalistic style. Her approach was fresh and she made her models look so normal in the scenarios she devised for them.

As Liberman said,

“Not only was Franny’s work for Vogue classic, it was pure, the kind of photographic vision which bordered on improvisational theater, catching the model’s face at a sensitive moment rather than following an artificial grammar inherited from the European fashion photographers who were the stars of the moment. Her pioneering concepts made her a key photographer.”

She passed away at 95 years old. One of the greats.