Some of Jill's photos along with Jill's narration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USb7puJwhv8&feature=youtu.be
7
Thanks for posting this fantastic obit for an unsung hero of street photography. Jill Freedman was fearless, intrepid, funny, and passionate. Her fierce spirit lives on in her photos. Great work, John Leland.
9
Great artist that innately connect to turning the ordinary to remarkable, the simple to profound are rare and wonders to behold. This grace..it's untouchable and the few artist that have surrendered to their muses within and let this voice evolve I'm forever grateful..and and Jill's the "sinister energy of insane clowns" thank god followed hers.
5
I discovered her work a couple of years ago when Daniel Arnold alerted his followers that she was having a rare print sale. Her beautiful photo of the two girls jumping rope is one of my favorite pieces of art. Her work is just stunning. What a loss for those who so often do not have a voice or are not seen.
9
Thanks to all my fellow photography-lovers for your thoughtful and sensitive comments here.
I'd just like to add that universal health care could have given Freedman more time and energy to continue her work...
Artists everywhere, along with so many others, need this sort of support from our government.
26
Great work; R.I.P.
At least she was recognized to some degree in her lifetime unlike Vivian Maier.
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This wonderful photographer has an Instagram account @jillfreedmanphoto with 461 of her photos.
14
Thank you NYT for shining a light on such a wonderful artist. She captured a diversity of subjects and an era in America that is long gone, especially in NYC. There was a time when there was room for everyone, no matter how different or eccentric. Her pictures are treasures. RIP Ms Freedman.
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Wonderful personal history of real contribution to society. It makes you feel better after reading endless headlines about those with unlimited power who only destroy.
11
What magic. Each photograph has a point to make; we want to see what's next. To tell these stories and get it right she was right she had to live where these moments started. What an artist.
7
Wow. So sad to read she didn't get the recognition she deserved while alive.
I'd love to see more of her work. It appears she was repped by a gallery. I hope they do an exhibit soon.
6
Never heard of her.
Great stuff!
2
I loved her. I had a painting made from a photo from “street cops”.I called her and told her.
Two officer going on a job in a narrow halls approaching a door,summer uniform ,gun in one cops hand,a cigar in another. Classic New York cop scene from the 70s. Doesn’t get any better. The quintessential photo of the job at that time.
13
beautiful
3
I love that even 36 years later you can tell "Double Trouble" was shot in Madison Square Park. Litter has been replaced with sculpture installations, but the benches and layout remain the same.
5
@Sandy I thought it looked like Washington Square Park, but maybe that is one of the photographer's gifts -- each of us sees our own environment in her work.
3
I was not familiar with this photographer, but the photos in this article are clearly as insightful as those of Garry Winogrand, Lee Friedlander, Joel Meyerowitz, Willam Klein, Tony Ray-Jones and Harriett Maier, among many others. It’s a shame she did not get the kind of recognition that they did. Her dedication to the art is truly inspiring.
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@Al she is a well known and respected photographer already...
5
@cossak Deservedly. Great photography.
3
I was lucky enough to hang out with Jill for a little while when she occupied a living room futon while visiting my area in California. She had recently, and justifiably, beaten me out for an Alicia Patterson grant and there was nothing to do but agree with that call. She was, photographically and in person, singular.
37
@dave So you met her. Wow. I had numerous chats with her on social media, and she seemed tough and charming. She was a massive inspiration. Thank you for sharing, Dave.
13
Fantastic eye for life as it is!
10
Brilliant, beautiful, seedy, a study in contrasts. I am left speechless, on the verge of tears. Brava!
19
I have numerous photographs in my cellar and attic of my father, mother, grandmother and me with friends and relatives I no longer remember.
There should be a law of some kind requiring people to label their photographs.
11
I admired her so much. I got a copy of her Poor People's Campaign book recently and had wondered what became of her. (I knew her work in NYC in the '70s--didn't know she had moved to Florida.) I hope someone will make a book of her unpublished photos.
24
There are two kinds of photographers: those who plan and compose their negatives intellectually, like Ansel Adams, and those who capture the 'decisive moment' like Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Jill Freedman was a master - mistress? - of the decisive moment, more than any other female photographer. Her counterpart was Diane Arbus.
Those of us who look for a revealing glimpse of real LIVING that only a still photograph can provide, by freezing action, prefer the Cartier-Bressons and Freedmans to their more antiseptic counterparts.
But like all things artistic, it comes down to taste. RIP Jill.
31
@Nat Ehrlich Ansel Adams froze nature at a moment in time, making it feel eternal. Freedman & Arbus froze action at a moment in time, making it feel eternal. All of their work leaves me awestruck. May Yosemite stand forever & couples kiss on park benches until the end of time.
17
@ursamaj
No disrespect for Ansel Adams. I was a news photographer - "shooter" - for several years, then shot dance for more years. I still remember all of the Life magazine photo essays by Cartier-Bresson, David Douglas Duncan, etc. I've certainly done my share of nature/landscape photography all over the country, but my efforts were to use the camera to reveal things that one would have difficulty seeing in real time...fleeting moments, facial expressions, athletic and balletic instants that are, for lack of a better word, moody. So I have a bias...
Cartier-Bresson famously sent his exposed rolls of film to a Monmouth NJ processor with the instruction to just print them "straight" revealing the black border around the frame, on 11 x 14 paper, which he then sent to Life. By contrast, Adams said it took him hours each time he had to make a print of "Sunrise: Hernandez NM"...and he made hundreds. That was his artistry. He wrote that the negative is the score, the print is the performance (he was a trained classical pianist).
As I said, it's a matter of taste. Steak or fish? I eat them both, but if I had to choose, ribeye!
8
I am sad to read this and realize as an avid photographer of 50 years that studies others efforts, I flat just missed her work when she was alive.
26
@David the price of following your muse?
8
@mickeyd8 ...or the tragedy of not catching up to her in time.
2