Having acquired another shot in the 1944 series of Shirley taken by Hungarian photographer Andre de Dienes, I decided to revisit the topic. Shot at the Arden Dairy Farm, some of the photos feature Tillie the cow.
Tillie, a pure-bred Jersey calf, was sent to Shirley for her birthday from the children of Tillamook in April 1935. The local Coliseum showed her 1934 film ‘Now and Forever’ to the children, and they signed a letter that accompanied the calf and received a complimentary photo of Shirley.
Obviously, it was not these photos taken nine years later!
Here’s a shot of de Dienes, who had just arrived in Hollywood at the time he photographed Shirley:
From the website immortal Marilyn:
de Dienes grew dissatisfied and bored with his role as a fashion photographer, and once again packed his bags and left for pastures new. This time he set his sights on California, the bright lights of Hollywood in specific where he settled and began work on the two subjects he felt more artistic passion for; nudes and landscapes. It was nature, both in the naked form of a human and the beauty of a landscape untouched by the hand of man that drew out the most notable work from de Dienes. He considered it bad form to alter or manipulate any photograph, citing that it was the endurance, the skill, the patience and the imagination of the photographer that made his work great. He championed natural, untouched beauty in front of the lens as much as he did behind it.
Here are two he took of a very young Marilyn Monroe (still known as Norma Jean Baker at the time) in December 1945:
He definitely had a thing for fresh-faced young girls on the farm!
1 comment:
I tend to agree with de Dienes' take on photography (although I'm certainly no artist myself, and have manipulated the heck out of many shots). Having been in commercial photography during the transition from film to digital, I think one of the things that damaged the medium was the ability to so easily manipulate what was captured, or not captured, at the instant of the shot. That and the loss of grain. ;-) Interestingly enough, digital cameras now replicate grain, so at least I had one small victory, I suppose.
By the way, I feel Shirley's photos are nicer than Norma's. Just an observation.
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