To walk so briskly, so strictly, so self-confidently between a horde of Italian men, whose eyes are all undressed and whose hands are not just in nice places: you have to manage that first.
Eyes straight ahead, a stole thrown on like armor, the step probably a bit faster than usual. Didn't she feel uncomfortable walking the gauntlet?
"On the contrary," Ninalee "Jinx" never tired of answering Allen Craig's life.
She felt like Dante's Beatrice and felt great in this “sea of men”.
Also consider.
Hundreds of thousands of other women thought the same, decorated their student booths with the picture and made sure that the picture became an icon of the women's movement.
Freddy Langer
Editor in the features section, responsible for the "Reiseblatt".
Follow I follow
She took in Ruth Orkin.
In Florence, on August 22, 1951. The legend goes that the two Americans had only met in a simple hotel the evening before and spontaneously decided to take a walk through the city together for a report about a woman traveling alone.
The potential that was in the scene on the Piazza della Repubblica was not hidden from Ruth Orkin, which is why she directed the new friend right into the middle of the macho group.
And one can assume that this did not remain hidden from the gentlemen and that they were only too happy to slip into the role of the papagallos, Casanova or Don Juan, in short: a womanly hero.
Sometimes clichés can also become an obligation.
How relaxed the atmosphere was just seconds later is shown by a look at the contact strip of Ruth Orkin's black-and-white film of that day: Because in the next picture, Jinx is screeching with pleasure on the motor scooter of the young man who has just left her from the roadside laughing cheekily and rattled off with him on the Lambretta.
Today, Ruth Orkin's picture “American Girl in Italy” was primarily used as an illustration of the me-too debate. The report wanted to tell of the newly gained zest for life after the years of war. Ruth Orkin had been to Israel, where she photographed the country's philharmonic orchestra on behalf of Life, then portrayed refugees out of private interest and even worked in a kibbutz for some time. On the way back to America, she took an extensive detour through Europe, including a stop in Italy.
The longing for the south, injected into the genes of Germans by Goethe at the latest, had long struck America as well. What, contrary to what some think, could not have been due to William Wyler's romantic comedy film “A Heart and a Crown”, in which Gregory Peck as a gossip reporter leads a Crown Princess played by Audrey Hepburn to the most beautiful places in Rome in a double game of hide-and-seek. Because it only came to the cinemas in 1953. Rather, one would not be surprised if, conversely, Ruth Orkin's photo reportage had inspired the screenwriter Dalton Trumbo to write his story. The recordings were published in September 1952 in the women's illustrated Cosmopolitan under the title “When You Travel Alone. . . ”, Supplemented by a whole range of advice on money, men and morals in order to travel happily and safely.But there is nothing to be found out about whether Dalton Trumbo saw the photo report.
It is said that the two young women were only out and about in the streets of Florence for two hours. But Ruth Orkin, who later also made films, obviously had her story very carefully in mind and found the perfect actress in the twenty-three-year-old art student Jinx. It was a game of moments that arise when traveling. Some things may have happened by chance, others were unambiguously arranged. Ruth Orkin was also not afraid to give in to the clichés: once she had her model peek out of a coach with narrowed eyes, the other time she gazed in the Loggia dei Lanzi next to the Palazzo Vecchio, astonished and open-mouthed, at Giambologna's depiction of a naked woman Reckens, who lifts up another naked, stolen Sabine woman.While talking to the waiter on the terrace of a street café, Jinx tries to get by with a wad of lira bills, while a seller at the market jots down the price for his bags on a piece of paper in order to overcome the language barrier. At an intersection, she asks a traffic policeman in a neat snow-white uniform for directions, and on a wide street she causes a traffic jam between a dozen humpbacked limousines, where it may have helped her not least that she closes her stole in bright red, like a color photograph can be seen, must have made an eye-catcher.while at the market, a seller notes down the price for his bags on a piece of paper in order to overcome the language barrier. At an intersection, she asks a traffic policeman in a neat snow-white uniform for directions, and on a wide street she causes a traffic jam between a dozen humpbacked limousines, where it may have helped her not least that she closes her stole in bright red, like a color photograph can be seen, must have made an eye-catcher.while at the market, a seller notes down the price for his bags on a piece of paper in order to overcome the language barrier. At an intersection, she asks a traffic policeman in a neat snow-white uniform for directions, and on a wide street she causes a traffic jam between a dozen humpbacked limousines, where it may have helped her not least that she closes her stole in bright red, like a color photograph can be seen, must have made an eye-catcher.as can be seen from a color photograph, must have made an eye-catcher.as can be seen from a color photograph, must have made an eye-catcher.
Florence becomes a theater, against the backdrop of which the play of the sweet life is performed - but not that of the sweet idleness, otherwise Jinx would not be sitting on one of the recordings, the travel guide in his lap, completely exhausted at the foot of the Neptune Fountain in the Piazza della Signoria. She does not look at the naked, erotically charged devil in the team of the sea god - which was possibly the subliminal advice of the report for the women traveling alone: The men? Don't even ignore it!
Tomorrow, Friday, Ruth Orkin would have been one hundred years old. On this occasion, the comprehensive illustrated book "Ruth Orkin -
A Photo Spirit" was published by Hatje Cantz Verlag
, edited by Nadine Barth and Mary Engel with texts by Kristen Gresh, Mary Engel and Ruth Orkin. 240 pages, numerous illustrations, bound, 38 euros. The Berlin gallery f³ - freiraum für fotografie is showing an exhibition with photos by Ruth Orkin from September 4th to November 21st.