Dialogue
Communication between people, the way things relate, has always caught Suschitzky’s attention. It almost seems as if one thing were bound to attract another, as if the reclining Buddha’s feet disliked
lying there on their own in all eternity, as if a single shirt were not destined to flap forlornly in the wind. “When our London flat burnt down during the Blitz,we moved out of London for a while, to Welwyn Garden City, about an hour by train from London. One morning at breakfast, looking out of the window, I spotted these frozen shirts in the early sun. The shirts had been forgotten on the line over night.”
Suschitzky expertly manages to capture intense moments in relationships, whether it be old friends, such as dramatist Sean O’Casey and actor Barry Fitzgerald, welcoming each other warmly after a long absence, whether it be children lost in play or a couple obviously caught in a moment of tension. This picture p. 38 turned out so well because his Rolleiflex camera allowed Suschitzky to shoot at any angle without people noticing they were being photographed. When exactly this intimate scene was taken (the photographer has variously dated it 1934, 1936 and 1941) is not as important as the story it tells: “The central focus of interest in the picture is a young woman who rests her elbows firmly on the table and gazes at her companion with a stare which is both interrogative and affectionate. Her male partner leans across the table in a pose which is both supplicating and emphatic. Around the couple the other diners are shadowy figures; one can make out a head here, a profile there. It is a beguiling and mysterious photograph of a small human drama.” (Val Williams) Sometimes it is the past and the present that enter into dialogue, with everyday scenes unexpectedly turning into whimsical historical documents. Who, for instance, is still aware today that grazing sheep were once employed to look after Hyde Park’s well-kept lawns? Long gone, too, are the streets of Stepney tenements, where Suschitzky managed to capture the lost world of an intact community with residents meeting in the street for a neighbourly chat.
lying there on their own in all eternity, as if a single shirt were not destined to flap forlornly in the wind. “When our London flat burnt down during the Blitz,we moved out of London for a while, to Welwyn Garden City, about an hour by train from London. One morning at breakfast, looking out of the window, I spotted these frozen shirts in the early sun. The shirts had been forgotten on the line over night.”
Suschitzky expertly manages to capture intense moments in relationships, whether it be old friends, such as dramatist Sean O’Casey and actor Barry Fitzgerald, welcoming each other warmly after a long absence, whether it be children lost in play or a couple obviously caught in a moment of tension. This picture p. 38 turned out so well because his Rolleiflex camera allowed Suschitzky to shoot at any angle without people noticing they were being photographed. When exactly this intimate scene was taken (the photographer has variously dated it 1934, 1936 and 1941) is not as important as the story it tells: “The central focus of interest in the picture is a young woman who rests her elbows firmly on the table and gazes at her companion with a stare which is both interrogative and affectionate. Her male partner leans across the table in a pose which is both supplicating and emphatic. Around the couple the other diners are shadowy figures; one can make out a head here, a profile there. It is a beguiling and mysterious photograph of a small human drama.” (Val Williams) Sometimes it is the past and the present that enter into dialogue, with everyday scenes unexpectedly turning into whimsical historical documents. Who, for instance, is still aware today that grazing sheep were once employed to look after Hyde Park’s well-kept lawns? Long gone, too, are the streets of Stepney tenements, where Suschitzky managed to capture the lost world of an intact community with residents meeting in the street for a neighbourly chat.
