Literature

“The studio became, for each of us, a sort of neutral area. It was not their home, as I had brought this alien enclosure into their lives: it was not my home as I had obviously come from elsewhere, from far away. But in this limbo there was for us both the possibility of contact that was a revelation to me and often ,I could tell, a moving experience for the subjects themselves, who without words-by only their stance and their concentration-were able to say much that spanned the gulf between our different worlds”~ Irving Penn I still remember the day I first bought a copy of Irving Penn’s amazing book “Worlds in a Small Room” so many years ago in London at Foyle’s Bookstore. It literally transported me to places I could have only dreamed of visiting. It still has that same effect today, a testimony to Penn’s unique craft and range of interests.Penn was an inveterate traveller with an insatiable curiosity about life and people which sustained him for 92 years. He set up his ambulant studio for this image in the town square of Guelmin, southern city in Morocco. Guelmin was home to an ancient camel market and known as the “Gateway to the Desert" where he invited these children to pose.His empathy just shines through.