Odette England: “Woman Wearing Ring Shields Face from Flash”

Photobook Reviews, Episode 6 – by Kate Schultze

Even though most photographic projects are based on photographs the photographer took themself, one of the genres I’m most interested in currently are bodies of work using archival images. Since 2019 Australian-British photographer Odette England collected “snapshots and other photographs showing men taking pictures of women without permission, women rejecting the camera by placing their hands over their faces, men posing with guns, and hands”. She also photographed women being taught how to use firearms by female instructors. The last few pages contain an appendix with the deictic description of hand gestures over time by Kim Beil, a writer and professor of art history focusing on photography at Stanford University.

The terms we use to describe taking a photograph - loading, focusing, aiming, shooting - is scarily similar to the vocabulary used in relation to guns. However, semantically it merged and has been normalised over decades. England draws attention to the violent aspects of taking someone's photograph, specifically in connection with women being “shot” by men. The foundation for this project is laid by the writings of Teju Cole and Susan Sontag dealing with this exact problem.

The book contains colour as well as black and white images. Some of them are shown extremely zoomed in as a full page or double spread, some of them shown as scans of prints only filling about half of the page. One of the most interesting design choices is her decision of splitting the double spreads and letting them continue further on in the book. This supports the unsettling feeling, which for me personally is created by looking at images of guns. The archival photographs feel intimate and make the problem of violence more urgent and personal. Other photographs can be seen as studies of hand gestures and the gun still-lifes  read like evidence photographs to me. Firstly creating a close proximity between the readers and the book she breaks it up and abruptly creates a sense of coldness and distance.

To me Woman Wearing Ring Shields Face from Flash is one of the most fascinating books combining archival images as well as new photographs. It perfectly captures the complexity and concern of the abstract problem of the violent aspect of photography.

If you are interested in finding out more great examples of archival photography make sure to check out Until Death Do Us Part by Thomas Sauvin and Adrift (and most of his other projects too to be honest) by Ben Alper.