Eve Arnold apprentice: she taught me how to pack a suitcase
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Eve Arnold, who has died aged 99, was not only a famed photographer, but a superb teacher. Photograph: Bernard Gotfryd/Getty Images
Beeban Kidron became the great photographer's apprentice at 16 and learned the tricks, trials and triumphs of the business.
Malcolm X, Chicago, 1961
I was very young when I was summoned to Eve's flat in Mayfair. Under my arm was a pile of photographs taken during the previous year. Unfortunately I had spilt a jar of pickled beetroot over them just before leaving home. Fortunately I had managed to rinse most of the pink stains off but they were still a little damp, and a slight whiff of beetroot emanated from the envelope.
On the intercom her voice was as deep as a man's and as American as the movies – in no way suggesting the elegant and diminutive silver-haired figure that greeted my panting at the top of the fourth flight. "If you want to be a photographer you must be fitter than that," she pronounced. Eve took my photographs very seriously, she turned them over slowly, and when she looked up she offered me a job as her assistant. I muttered something about it being the day before my 14th birthday and having to go to school. She laughed an unbridled fulsome laugh, bigger than her frame. "Well we will have to wait then … and by the way what's with the beetroot?"
Joan Crawford, Los Angeles, 1959
Eve's name is rarely printed without the prefix "legendary". Legendary pioneer for female photojournalists. Legendary white woman who went on the road with Malcolm X. Legendary for photographing every American president for four decades. Legendary Eve set the standard for a "new normal" in which we would see our stars "behind the scenes". She photographed Marilyn in the bathroom with her skirt hitched up; Marlene Dietrich with no makeup; Anjelica Houston hugging her director daddy John and a young student Paul Newman before he had ever made a film. Legendary Eve deserved her tag: she went to China when it was closed, Afghanistan, Mongolia, Russia when it was the enemy – she was never deterred.
On my 16th birthday, I got a call. The same gravel voice asked if I "was or was not" going to leave school to be her assistant. I was and I did.
Horse training for the militia, Inner Mongolia, China, 1979
Working for Eve meant doing whatever she said, whenever she said it – it wasn't that she shouted – it was simply understood that her word was the first, middle and final.
Her marvellous hospitality meant that I glimpsed a world of people, many of whom appeared in her pictures, of politicians, actors, publishers, authors, artists as they traipsed up the four flights – more than one of them panting as she greeted them. It also meant hours in the dark with the slide projector spinning – the reassuring click of her colour slides dropping in and out of pole position as she reviewed and edited, reviewed and edited, reviewed and edited until it was so late that she made up my bed on the couch.
Marilyn Monroe, Long Island, New York, 1955
Sitting in the dark, faces would appear from parts of the world I could not pronounce nor find on a map, alongside the most recognisable profiles in front of iconic locations – this was her gift.
For Eve everyone was equal and all situations contained the potential for beauty and interrogation.
She was an early adopter of colour – favouring a thick negative with rich hues and simple compositions – and she ruthlessly edited her own work with a wicked sense of humour. "It's not that we're so great, it's that the others are so fucking mediocre."
Marlene Dietrich at the recording studios of Columbia Records, 1952
By the time I was 17 I was up and out – off to see the big wide world described by the thousands of Eve's photographs I had labelled. It was only then that she told me that every letter I had typed she had steamed open and re-typed because my spelling was so bad; that her friends were always amused by my wide-eyed astonishment as I opened the door to find a mildly breathless household name standing there … and that on reflection she thought I might consider becoming a filmmaker rather than a photographer. I would if I was younger.
From Eve I learned: how to pack a suitcase – with a dress you could wear to a palace and shoes to run a marathon if required; how to look at pictures – for metaphor, form and truth; how to work – until it was done; how to be kind to your fellow artist – judge the endeavour not the result; and how to be a friend – through thick and thin; and how to laugh – uproariously and often.
I haven't worked for Eve for more than 30 years – that privilege resides with Linni, her long-term colleague and assistant. But she became my adviser and friend. And when my son was very sick shortly after he was born, she did the one thing she knew how to do – she took his photograph – breaking her own rule of no baby pictures. It is one of those pictures, along side one of her with Marilyn, that adorn my office wall.
Permanent Wave, China, 1979
Eve has many friends and whilst we mourn the loss of her – along with her son Frank, her daughter-in-law and her grandchildren – we are all agreed. It wasn't that the others were mediocre; it was that Eve was so fucking great.
Beeban Kidron is a British film director best known for her adaptation of Jeanette Winterson's autobiographical novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and for directing Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. She is co-founder of Filmclub, an educational charity in schools.
Guardian News
Eve Arnold, who has died aged 99, was not only a famed photographer, but a superb teacher. Photograph: Bernard Gotfryd/Getty Images
Beeban Kidron became the great photographer's apprentice at 16 and learned the tricks, trials and triumphs of the business.
I was very young when I was summoned to Eve's flat in Mayfair. Under my arm was a pile of photographs taken during the previous year. Unfortunately I had spilt a jar of pickled beetroot over them just before leaving home. Fortunately I had managed to rinse most of the pink stains off but they were still a little damp, and a slight whiff of beetroot emanated from the envelope.
On the intercom her voice was as deep as a man's and as American as the movies – in no way suggesting the elegant and diminutive silver-haired figure that greeted my panting at the top of the fourth flight. "If you want to be a photographer you must be fitter than that," she pronounced. Eve took my photographs very seriously, she turned them over slowly, and when she looked up she offered me a job as her assistant. I muttered something about it being the day before my 14th birthday and having to go to school. She laughed an unbridled fulsome laugh, bigger than her frame. "Well we will have to wait then … and by the way what's with the beetroot?"
Joan Crawford, Los Angeles, 1959
Eve's name is rarely printed without the prefix "legendary". Legendary pioneer for female photojournalists. Legendary white woman who went on the road with Malcolm X. Legendary for photographing every American president for four decades. Legendary Eve set the standard for a "new normal" in which we would see our stars "behind the scenes". She photographed Marilyn in the bathroom with her skirt hitched up; Marlene Dietrich with no makeup; Anjelica Houston hugging her director daddy John and a young student Paul Newman before he had ever made a film. Legendary Eve deserved her tag: she went to China when it was closed, Afghanistan, Mongolia, Russia when it was the enemy – she was never deterred.
On my 16th birthday, I got a call. The same gravel voice asked if I "was or was not" going to leave school to be her assistant. I was and I did.
Horse training for the militia, Inner Mongolia, China, 1979
Working for Eve meant doing whatever she said, whenever she said it – it wasn't that she shouted – it was simply understood that her word was the first, middle and final.
Her marvellous hospitality meant that I glimpsed a world of people, many of whom appeared in her pictures, of politicians, actors, publishers, authors, artists as they traipsed up the four flights – more than one of them panting as she greeted them. It also meant hours in the dark with the slide projector spinning – the reassuring click of her colour slides dropping in and out of pole position as she reviewed and edited, reviewed and edited, reviewed and edited until it was so late that she made up my bed on the couch.
Marilyn Monroe, Long Island, New York, 1955
Sitting in the dark, faces would appear from parts of the world I could not pronounce nor find on a map, alongside the most recognisable profiles in front of iconic locations – this was her gift.
For Eve everyone was equal and all situations contained the potential for beauty and interrogation.
She was an early adopter of colour – favouring a thick negative with rich hues and simple compositions – and she ruthlessly edited her own work with a wicked sense of humour. "It's not that we're so great, it's that the others are so fucking mediocre."
Marlene Dietrich at the recording studios of Columbia Records, 1952
By the time I was 17 I was up and out – off to see the big wide world described by the thousands of Eve's photographs I had labelled. It was only then that she told me that every letter I had typed she had steamed open and re-typed because my spelling was so bad; that her friends were always amused by my wide-eyed astonishment as I opened the door to find a mildly breathless household name standing there … and that on reflection she thought I might consider becoming a filmmaker rather than a photographer. I would if I was younger.
From Eve I learned: how to pack a suitcase – with a dress you could wear to a palace and shoes to run a marathon if required; how to look at pictures – for metaphor, form and truth; how to work – until it was done; how to be kind to your fellow artist – judge the endeavour not the result; and how to be a friend – through thick and thin; and how to laugh – uproariously and often.
I haven't worked for Eve for more than 30 years – that privilege resides with Linni, her long-term colleague and assistant. But she became my adviser and friend. And when my son was very sick shortly after he was born, she did the one thing she knew how to do – she took his photograph – breaking her own rule of no baby pictures. It is one of those pictures, along side one of her with Marilyn, that adorn my office wall.
Permanent Wave, China, 1979
Eve has many friends and whilst we mourn the loss of her – along with her son Frank, her daughter-in-law and her grandchildren – we are all agreed. It wasn't that the others were mediocre; it was that Eve was so fucking great.
Beeban Kidron is a British film director best known for her adaptation of Jeanette Winterson's autobiographical novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and for directing Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. She is co-founder of Filmclub, an educational charity in schools.
Guardian News
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