photo.net Interview: Elsa Dorfman

by Lisa Surati

Our first featured interview in the photo.net interview series is with Elsa Dorfman, a portrait photographer in Cambridge, MA .

Background

Elsa's portraits do not illuminate or glamorize her clients; rather, Elsa presents her clients in an extraordinary way, as themselves. Elsa embraces her clients' uniqueness and imperfections to present them in a way reflective of their daily lives. She encourages clients to wear everyday clothes and to bring their pets, toys, musical instruments, skis, and anything else that is an important part of who they are and where they are in their lives.

In June of 1965 Elsa was working at what is now called Educational Development Corporation (EDC) developing teaching materials for elementary school science teachers. There, Elsa met George Cope, the photographer who took all the photographs for the books EDC turned out. George handed the camera to Elsa and taught her how to use it, making photography seem accessible to her. She's been recording the lives of people since. Elsa photographs her clients with the Polaroid 20x24 (pictured on top left with Elsa), one of only six in existence. The camera weighs about 200 pounds, and is 25.2" wide, 40.94" long, and 59.06" high. The camera is essentially a box with a hole in the front for the lens. The box has a Polaroid film processor built into the back door. Elsa loves her Polariod 20x24 because of its history and due to the fact that so many people who worked with camera are still devoted to it. She loves the camera's quirkiness and unpredictability - it seems to have its own soul. Elsa also uses the Polaroid Polacolor ER instant color film ASA 80. She usually lets the film develop for 70 seconds before peeling it apart. Elsa also uses Broncolor strobes because she finds it very good for non-technical people.

In addition to taking portraits, Elsa has written a book Elsa's Housebook: A Woman's Photojournal and her work can be found in En Famille , a poem by Robert Creeley (the entire book is on the web.) Leslie Sills' new book, In Real Life: Six Women Photographers features a chapter on Elsa and her work.

The Interview

Photo.net met up with Elsa and asked her a few questions.

1. What drove you to make the transition from teacher to photographer?

   It wasn't exactly a transition from choice. I was a failure as a teacher. I was a good teacher in the opinion of the kids, but the administration was sure I was a failure. I couldn't get the kids to salute the flag by 8:05 or read the bible. And I didn't always wear high heels. Sometimes I wore knee socks and saddle shoes, let alone sneakers. I wasn't that organized, and I didn't decorate my classroom, at least not to the schools standards. I was a teacher by default. I had no idea what TO BE.

   In those days, the early sixties, there were no role models - at least I didn't see any around me. I had been in New York City and had been a groupie. I was just middle class enough to know that that lifestyle (the word didn't exist until around 1974) wasn't really for me. I never liked drugs. I liked to know what was happening. I liked to be in control. So I went from teacher to experimental teacher at Educational Services Inc. (now called EDC). While at EDC, I was photographed by their photographer George Cope. And so there was a lineage, and I guess the role model I was searching for.

2. What about photography captivated your interest?

   Well, it was easier for me, at least, than sitting in a room by myself writing a novel. And it was clear I couldn't have a straight life in some office. I loved the fact photography got me out on the street with a reason. It was a project. And I adored the spirituality of the darkroom. It just clicked, forgive me. I always wore glasses and I always stared. I think looking and observing was always a big part of me. The way moving is a big part of some people, staying put and looking were a big part of me. And I was always curious about people. Imagining their lives.

3. Why did you choose portrait photography.

   I am very urban. I never was a hiker or a person who got ecstatic because they reached the top of a hill, let alone mountain. When I went to summer camp and had to hike up a tiny mountain, I never could understand what the big deal was getting to the top. So what, there it was. Back down again. And I never saw the beauty in schlepping along a trail. It just wasn't me. And though I adore gardens and flowers and plants now, at the time, it never occurred to me to actually photograph them. But I always was interested in people. And of course, I started photographing, by photographing kids for the Educational Services Inc. materials. I was always surrounded by pictures of kids in classrooms with science materials. There were also the market forces. People wanted pictures of my literary friends, and my literary friends needed pictures. It all sort of happened without an intellectual decision.

   Actually, in my life nothing has happened from an intellectual decision. I sort of bumbled into this or that, and then when I was halfway down the hole, I'd say, gee, I think I am going somewhere, skid down the rest of the way. I never know going forward, I only know looking backwards afterwards.

4. What advice would you give to a person interested in becoming a professional photographer?

   The person has to be really high energy (which I'm not) strong to do schlepping and organized. The person has to be able to work with other people (which I'm not good at). I don't consider myself a professional photographer because I schlep along and make barely make enough money to pay my bills and live a little. I consider the big guys, and women, to be the real photographers. But I would say to someone, and I often do, make sure you have enough money to pay your rent and your health insurance.

   Also learn a skill so you can earn money, then you can follow your bliss. I guess young people have to know their way around digital. They have to be hustlers. Energetic. Know what they want. I think they have to be type A people. Singapore tomorrow. Of course, I'll be there. Newfoundland next week, well, maybe on Thursday. Even when I was young (now turning 64), I wasn't that kind of person. I think a photographer has to be a good business person and a good marketer. Forgive me it is really true. It pays to have a head for business and marketing.

   When I was entering the work force in the early sixties, business and marketing were dirty words. The only thing we thought about in the sixties, at least in my crowd, was stopping the war in Vietnam. It was a different life. I don't think we ever thought we would grow up and have to know important stuff and support ourselves and have health insurance. If you had told me then, that my advice to a young person contemplating a creative career in 2001 was make sure you get health insurance, I would have roared with laughter at the insanity of such an idea. And look, it happened.

   I think it is important to remember that making it as a photographer isn't entirely dependent on talent. I believe making it as a photographer is more about perseverance than brilliance. I know lots of really great photographers who didn't have the stamina to plug along for more than a decade. I don't think one has to be brilliant to make it as a photographer, rather one has to stick with it. Be competent, reliable, do the job and a bit more. Most people are incompetent no matter the field they are in, so the merely competent thrive. I also think one has to be lucky. One has to figure out how to be lucky. Don't ask me, maybe it is simply karma. One has to figure out where to be to be lucky. One has to recognize when one is lucky. Don't let the luck evaporate. And one has to show up. That is, the work must get seen, people have to know what you're doing. Luck isn't going to ring at your doorbell or send you an email. You have to find it, make it happen and recognize it. I think one has to remember life is long and not be in a hurry. If you stay alive long enough and keep working, you will probably make it. Before you know it, you're sixty, all the more talented people are bankers or whatever and all the things you insisted were on the right track turn out to be prescient. I guess my motto would be who knew. So photo.net is providing a big service....