Contrasts and styles

Contrasts and styles

A few days ago, I posted a blog about Bob Carlos Clarke, and Colin (nellacphoto) added one of his pictures of Jilly Johnson signing a Carlos Clarke print, and shared a link to YouTube with JJ being photographed by BCC, and also by Patrick Lichfield, Beverley Goodway, Jo Spence, and Jane Bown.

Jane Bown probably ought to be better known than she is: she won’t tick all the boxes for most, right down to the way she held her camera… But she was a brilliant and self-effacing portraitist – finished in 18 minutes, though this might exclude the time JJ spent removing her makeup.

Lichfield went for classy high glamour, Goodway shot his standard sort of Page 3 image. Jo Spence (a feminist, whose worked tended to be political) shot her in the kitchen, wearing ordinary clothes, almost deglamourised. And followed up with a still life of groceries with plastic boobs… ‘In advertising they’ve become a commodity’ explained Spence. ‘It’s just not my thing’ said Johnson.

Carlos Clarke put her – literally – on a pedestal, with a bow and arrow, posing on one leg. She tended to fall off… BCC’s explanation of what he was going to do in the darkroom followed: amazingly complex work, even in Photoshop, and he had to make ‘25 or 30’ prints to get the effect he wanted – you can see the result (upside down, as Johnson signed it) in my blog ‘BCC’ a few days ago.

It’s always an interesting exercise to view one person or place as pictured by different artists: maybe if you follow the link Colin provided the other day, you can work out for yourself whether anyone penetrated the Page 3 mask to find the real Jilly Johnson. The illustration is a striking marcher at Make Poverty History, as I've never had the pleasure of meeting and photogrpahing JJ...