Woman at Coney Island, New York Possibly 1939 - 1976

Lisette Model made this photograph, Woman at Coney Island, New York, with her camera, at an indeterminate time. The grey tones feel natural and unaffected, like the beach, the sea, the woman. The tonal scale moves around an emotional register, which I guess is what all photographs do in a way, but here its kind of up front. I'm really drawn to the way the breaking wave runs between her legs, the way the froth mirrors the pale flesh. It’s interesting to think about how a photograph, like a painting, can be built up from marks – here, the marks are tones, ranging from dark to light, and the gesture is the arrangement of the woman's body. I guess her body is the main event, the topography of the photograph. This image reminds me of Diane Arbus, another artist who was interested in documenting a certain segment of New York society, and in this way it speaks to a tradition of photography as a kind of social commentary, a way of making visible the lives and experiences of people who are often overlooked or marginalized.