Documentary Research - Eve Arnold

When thinking about character studies, there was no better artist that I could think of than photographer Eve Arnold, who died last year.
Aside from the fact that she is one of my favourite artists, Eve Arnold was one of the first to move away from the staged portrait photography and capture the natural essence of the subject through capturing them in their most comfortable environment, whether that be Marilyn Monroe on set, Marlene Dietrich in the studio or a mother with her newborn child.

Marlene Dietrich at the recording studios of Columbia Records, 1952

Bar girl in a brothel in the red light district, Havana, Cuba, 1954

Widow Needing Companion: Dora Grubb and amateur painter at the Royal Academy of Arts, London , 1961

Eve Arnold on the set of Becket, 1963

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 1971

Horse Training for the militia, Inner Mongolia, China, 1979

Marilyn Monroe

Margaret Thatcher electioneering in the Orkneys, 1977

Mother and baby's hands, first five minutes of life, Port Jefferson, Long Island, 1959

Although Arnold worked very closely with celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Joan Crawford, Elizabeth Taylor and Margaret Thatcher, to name a few, she spent much of her later career travelling the world and capturing the lives of many faces of many cultures, including some political photography.

My favourite photograph of hers perfectly captures not only the emotions of the subjects, but also the mood of the social situation at the time of the American Civil Rights Movement.

School for black civil rights activists; young girl being trained not to react to smoke being blown in her face, Virginia, 1960