AWRF10 - An hour with Marti Friedlander

I'm really sorry I couldn't make it to this event as I am a huge fan of Marti Friedlander -- her talent and her personality both. Luckily my colleague Juliana went and contributed this report for Books in the City.

Leonard Bell, art historian and author of the book “Marti Friedlander”, began this session by talking about photography as the art of “drawing with light”. And then he introduced the woman who was to keep a packed audience entranced for the next hour. 

For fifty years Marti Friedlander has been documenting New Zealand and New Zealanders. Early on she made a conscious decision to try and capture the faces of emerging artists. As portrait after glorious portrait of artists and writers appeared on the screen, Marti talked about the photographs and the subjects. She explained how she uses only available light, her own “bossiness”, the vulnerability and strength of her subjects when the photograph was taken and what was happening in her own life at that time. There was a lovely moment of interaction with the photographer Gil Hanly, who was in the front row taking photographs and on the screen circa 1968 with husband Pat Hanly.

Marti talked about her love of faces and how hard she was finding not being able to see us, her audience. It was,she said, like “talking to shadows”.

The hour flew by we followed the “Clap, clap, clap” message on the screen with enthusiasm and warmth. We could have listened and looked for a lot, lot longer.