Beaton and Monroe
Instead of getting a calendar with a monthly image of a cat stuck in an item from the kitchen (I haven't seen images of cats in Microwaves or Ovens yet! And nor do I condone such behaviour!) I decided to opt for a Cecil Beaton calendar. My options were slightly limited as the calendars were for sale in a Pound shop!
Any road, I love Beaton's images, particularly the early platinum prints.
As I was scouring through some of his images I came across many portraits of Marilyn Monroe. I like Marilyn Monroe too. She's very much different from models of today, it's as if she was built by 1950's man, for men. She was beautiful, playful and womanly and I like to see all of these 3 characteristics in her portraits. However for me, despite being the brilliant photographer he was, Beaton didn't catch Monroe as well as other photographers. Sure he had no problem highlighting how beautiful and womanly she was aesthetically but he failed to reveal how playful she was in his images. Did she have a better chemistry with heterosexual photographers?
I then went on to look at other images of Monroe. Here's a few that Beaton took.
Any road, I love Beaton's images, particularly the early platinum prints.
As I was scouring through some of his images I came across many portraits of Marilyn Monroe. I like Marilyn Monroe too. She's very much different from models of today, it's as if she was built by 1950's man, for men. She was beautiful, playful and womanly and I like to see all of these 3 characteristics in her portraits. However for me, despite being the brilliant photographer he was, Beaton didn't catch Monroe as well as other photographers. Sure he had no problem highlighting how beautiful and womanly she was aesthetically but he failed to reveal how playful she was in his images. Did she have a better chemistry with heterosexual photographers?
I then went on to look at other images of Monroe. Here's a few that Beaton took.
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