Picture for Discussion

For our first assignment we had to read “The Nature of Photographs,” and pick a picture to discuss in class and prepare one question to pose for discussion. I chose an image from “Easton Portraits” by Judith Joy Ross, 1988.
For our first assignment we had to read “The Nature of Photographs,” and pick a picture to discuss in class and prepare one question to pose for discussion. I chose an image from “Easton Portraits” by Judith Joy Ross, 1988.
Judith is a portrait photographer. This image is of three young girls in bathing suits looking shyly at the camera while behind them, in the distance and out of focus, a teenage boy observes the proceedings. I feel the picture varies in textures, starts a narrative, and is cleverly composed.
She captures their individuality and innocence. Seem like sweet young girls.
This is a straightforward image of the girls centered in the frame. The space they inhabit is not clearly defined. We are left, instead, to read their faces. Also by leaving the space not behind not in focus, she captures the emotions of each photo's subjects without succumbing to the clouding context of their surrounding environment. As the book states, “There is a gravitation of attention to the plane of focus. Attention to focus concentrates our attention” on to the girls.

She workes with an old-fashioned view camera that produces 8 x 10 negatives

As for my question: Do you think this image represents childhood and innocents or a passage into women hood?