Self-Portrait with Leica c. 1931 - 1988

Ilse Bing made this self-portrait with her Leica camera, sometime in her early thirties. She stares right at us – or rather, right at the mirrored version of herself – while also showing herself in profile. I’m thinking about what it would be like to be her, crouching down, trying to frame the shot in the mirror. It's not easy – it's always a bit of a dance trying to get yourself into focus! I like to imagine that she's thinking about what it means to see and be seen, and what it means to capture the world around her. The contrast between light and dark reminds me of Hannah Hoch’s collages, all those photomontages from Weimar Germany! Maybe they were friends? It’s lovely to think about how artists look at each other's work, and find new ways of seeing the world. It’s like a visual conversation that never ends.