The innocent humour of the old woman in this photograph gives us a portrait of photography; she photographs the photographer and she photographs us. The bowl of the carafe holds an upside-down reflection of the room, the photographer and the windows lighting the scene. An apparently simple picture encapsulates the inherent magic and difficulty of photography.
Martine Franck (Belgian, born 1938 - 2012)
Martine Franck has an international background; she was born in Antwerp, educated in England and the United States, and studied in Madrid and Paris. She was one of the founders of the agency, Viva, and is now a member of the Magnum agency. In 1970 she married Henri Cartier-Bresson. She wrote: 'Photography came as a substitute. I was painfully shy and found talking to people difficult; a camera in hand gave me a function, a reason to be somewhere, a witness but not an actor'. She has worked in places as diverse as France, Ireland, China, India and Japan.
