I was in Cantones, a Italian restaurant, yesterday with some friends for dinner. And there was this beautiful, may be 3-3.5 ft wide black and white picture of a gorgeous lady walking down a street in Italy, lined up with men on either sides. May be the mood in the restaurant created by a bunch of vibrant old men was a direct reflection of the feel in the picture... or may be its just that the picture was so simply beautiful, we couldn’t take our eyes of it. I loved it so much that I took a picture of it in my cell phone and we all had some fun discussing the expressions in the picture.
Cut to today morning, we come into work and the friend who took us to Cantones reads this piece online ... http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/american-girl-italy-60-years-later-221005987.html
It happens to be the 60th anniversary of this pic. The article is interesting. You get to see how gracefully that pretty woman in that picture has aged. And when you imagine what these both women (subject and photographer) did that day, 60 years ago, we can understand why the men reacted the way they did. It is possible this was a shot from the second walk. Don’t you think? Or its just Italian men – they would give you that kind of reception no matter how many times you walked that road. Their expression is what makes her the star in the pic. Without them, her grace and beauty wouldn’t have shone through the way it did.
It’s interesting how these two women made this iconic picture. Who would have expected it would turn out like this!
To see more of Ruth Orkins work: http://www.orkinphoto.com/photographs/
