Barbara Ess
[Photographer, b. 1948, Brooklyn, New York, lives in New York.]
I try to photograph what can’t be photographed—psychological or subjective reality, which seems more real than physical or consensual reality.
Reality... includes a perceiver, who has memories, thoughts, desires, emotions—[which] a normal camera tends to omit.
...I use primal imagery, so maybe it’s fitting that I use the most primitive of cameras [pinhole cameras]. Since there’s no viewfinder, the image is much more of a surprise—as if some outsider came and looked at earth for the first time.
When I try to get clever I fail, so I stick with the basic issues of human life on earth—sex, death, relationships, discovering who you are, being hurt and confused.
My camera distorts and I like that—I like distortion in music too because it loosens things up.
(On her pinhole camera)
