Jill Friedman: The Human Face Of Photography

Earlier this year we lost one of the giants of social documentary photography: Jill Friedman (19 October 1939) was an American documentary and street photographer who was active until her death on 9 October 2019.

Although not trained as a photographer, and only becoming active in the late sixties, she became one of the great photographers of the 20th century.

Searching for more information on several photographers whose work I admire, I discovered the documentary below. It has many take-aways I learned from Freedman’s work.

What me most struck when looking at her work, and also the presentation below, is her human approach to photography. There seems to be a real connectedness between her and her subjects: almost if she is able to catch the soul of the people she photographed.

With her down to earth approach to photography and people, she also was able to rethink her opinion about people. Take for example her thoughts about cops as mentioned in the video.

She had a quite outspoken opinion about things which, naturally, had an impact on what and how she photographed. This, however, makes her photography really ‘raw street’: it is all about real life and not, as we nowadays see a lot in street photography, about aesthetics, shadows, and other more technical photographic aspects.

Jill Freedman - Documentary Photographer

A 2016 documentary from the New York City Visual School of Arts