“Genius” was the word that came to mind when looking through Jill Freedman‘s series entitled, “Jill’s Dogs”. I will include many of those photographs in an upcoming post featuring iconic photographs of dogs.  Stay tuned by subscribing to this blog. 

 

Bob Ahern, Director of Getty Images Archives interviewed Freedman and he used the word, “fearless”.  Perfect choice of word.  (Read the interview here.)

 

“Fearless” is what you must be in order to capture some of the Circus Series photographs.  The logistics, emotional strength and stamina, and too, the vulnerability, require fearlessness.  It is in the elephants most that I see this.  As difficult as it is for me to look at some of these images, I can’t not look – it is like a protest calling us to join the cause.  I can’t emphasize enough how much I dislike circuses and I detest cruelty to animals.  It is heart wrenching to see how these elephants are treated and I have to believe that Freedman must think that, too, and this is how she expresses it.

 

I’m not sure if Freedman shares the same passion about this as me, but I know there is passion.  It is evident in all of her photographs.

 

Passion and fearlessness.  Intrepid.

 

From the Circus Days series:

 

Other work:

 

From the Firehouse series:

 

A prolific photographer, this sampling is but a fraction of Freedman’s work.  I encourage you to view her portfolio and take a stroll through her site where she also keeps a blog.

 

Another article worth reading is the post James Estrin wrote for the New York Times Lens Blog.