Garry Winogrand (American, 1928–1984). Centennial Ball, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1969. Gelatin silver print. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Gift of Dr. L.F. Peede, Jr.
«Garry Winogrand constantly contemplated and experimented with society's notions of beauty, especially its views on women. He once said that the reason we photograph is "to learn who we are and how we feel." I think his photographs are less about the subject and more about the society that surrounds them. Women, from the moment they step out of their houses, are expected to maintain a certain standard of self-presentation and appearance. Winogrand photographed women who were in this "presentable" state but shot them candidly, not posed. He took away the subject's ability to consciously present herself, capturing the space between her inner, subconscious beauty and societal preconceptions of it.»
While studying Winogrand's work, I found myself drawing parallels between the women he photographed and the female inhabitants of New York today. The same expectations are still placed upon women—and what better place to document such parallels than this city, home to all things beautiful and larger than life, society's home for those who pride themselves on the way the world perceives them?
Clarrie. Untitled, 2014. Digital photograph
People choose specific clothing, jewelry, and body enhancements as a means of presenting their conscious and subconscious perceptions of and goals for themselves to the world. It's easy to capture an exoskeleton, a front that people present to the rest of the world, the fabricated versions of themselves that allow them to "fit in." This is where Winogrand differs from other photographers; he saw a way to break through that outer facade and capture a person's true self, capturing it forever in a photograph and prolonging the essence of true beauty.