Rosalind Fox Solomon dead at 95

[logan2z]

We lost another one...

Rosalind Fox Solomon, Photographer Who Pictured Alienation and Racism, Dies at 95

Rosalind Fox Solomon, a photographer who pictured racism and alienation, has died at 95.

www.artnews.com

 

[jvo]

I wasn't familiar with her work, so searched for some images and info - found plenty and interesting.

one article described her as "...seeker of the bizarre and beautiful." She was. She hasn't raised the ire of the critics as other "bizarre-ists' have. I presume because her work wasn't all one type or the other!

 

[nikos79]

So sad, just read it. I have two of her books. Very unique style and very good photographer.
On the other hand if you notice it many photographers seem to live many years. Perhaps the curious nature of photography gives them purpose and keeps the brain active.

 

[Don_ih]

On the other hand if you notice it many photographers seem to live many years.

I've noticed that, too.

I think it's the chemicals. Preserved by all that sodium sulfite.

 

[koraks]

On the other hand if you notice it many photographers seem to live many years.

Some do, some don't. Here's 35 dead photographers from a fairly random list with the main commonality being they're famous:

Horizontal is year of death, vertical is age at death.

Insofar as there's a pattern, it suggests that their life expectancy increases. Since the list is biased towards (in fact consists exclusively of) photographers having lived and worked in the West, the increase in life expectancy is in keeping with normal demographic trends.

On average, photographers do seem to live longer than others of the same generation - at least the ones on the list I looked at, and the ones who deceased in recent decades. If you look at the ones who passed away pre-2000, it's much more of a mixed bag. In part this may be due to generally low occupational hazards, as well as many photographers moving in higher educated circles, and education and life expectancy correlate quite strongly to begin with.

Another methodological issue of course pops up, which is that in order to become famous, you generally need a little time. So a list of famous photographers (which would be the ones we'd typically discuss here) would naturally be biased away from people who die young. They would have had less opportunity to make as well as sell/market their work and career in general.

So yeah, photographers seem to live kind of long relatively speaking. Then again, it turns out that in societies with decent healthcare, people with not too insane occupational hazards live quite long anyway - provided they don't smoke, or drink excessively (this is where you might bring up Egglestone, I suppose).

Maybe it's the mental exercise. Maybe it's the sulfite. Maybe it's Maybelline. Or maybe it's just the demographics bracket they slide into and the photography has not much to do with it at all.
Still, I'm going to go with the sulfite. I like that story the best.

 

[nikos79]

Lartigue who printed since he was 6 years old (i think) died at 92!

 

[nikos79]

Inspired by the graph presented before here is another more complete graph calculated from here:

Platon Rivellis - Important photographers and their work

Ο επίσημος ιστότοπος του Πλάτωνα Ριβέλλη, Φωτογράφου και Δασκάλου Φωτογραφίας

www.rivellis.gr

It shows an unheard median age of 82 years especially for that period.

P.s. there is one small mistake one possible outlier at 123 that doesn't affect the results

 

[koraks]

Riiiight.
I'd have another look at the data before we start discussing this.

OK, here's your cloud:

I fixed the obvious problem with Erno Vadas whose year of birth as well as death were incorrect. Who knows how many others are false; this one just popped out.
Anyway, pattern is still pretty much the same. Life expectancy goes up, spread reduces. Just as you'd expect based on general demographics over the past decades.

Average age is 79 (idk why we'd want to use a median here) in that dataset, which really is pretty decent in any regard. As I said before - relatively safe profession and people of a generally favorable socio-economic status.

 

[koraks]

But - I like the hypothesis game. I'll play. In doing so, I'll contend that the explanation for the excessive life expectancy of photographers is the fact that they're starving artists. Since it's a generally poorly paid profession, by necessity the caloric intake of any given photographer will be limited. This reduces the risk of premature death due to cardiovascular problems, diabetes, intestinal cancers etc.

 

[nikos79]

I am challenging you to produce a similar graph for painters. In them I observed the opposite, too short life expectancy.
Could it be that the painters struggle with their art more than we photographers do?
I suppose can be exhausting to work months on a single canvas while we photogeaphers can do it in one day for example

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Bit sad that a thread devoted to Rosalind Fox Solomon's memory and legacy has veered into "Let's make a graph to figure out how old photographers are when they die."

Not saying it isn't an interesting subject — OK, I'm saying it, but nobody should care about my opinion — but seriously? More interesting than to talk about the work of one of the most original photographers of the last 50 years or so?

Here's Alec Soth talking about her latest (and last) book, "A Woman I Once Knew".

 

[Don_ih]

Here's Alec Soth

Thanks for the link, Alex. Not the kind of book most photographers would put out, that's certain. Daring.

 

[koraks]

Bit sad that a thread devoted to Rosalind Fox Solomon's memory and legacy has veered into "Let's make a graph to figure out how old photographers are when they die."

I'll split it off at some point into a separate thread. On my phone right now which makes it cumbersome, but I had this in mind already before you posted.

As to painters - there's evidently an optimum to productive starvation. Starve the artist too far and they did young. See, perfect explanation.