20 Strong Women in History, and my strong daughter
When the world shut down & lockdown started, I took on the temporary position of “teacher” to my children. It’s been a hard season for me, as it has been for a lot of us. I knew that I needed to continue to create, even though my ability to photograph my typical work came to a screeching halt.
Something my daughter, Harper, and I have always done together is discuss brilliant women in history. Over the years we’ve read story upon story of various strong females who have paved the way for us today, and who continue to stand up & make their voice heard. After a conversation Harper & I had during “home-school” one day, it occurred to me that we could work together on a project that would both teach her – and allow me to work out some creative energy.
Together we chose 20 women to recreate portraits of. There were a few ground-rules for our project (which all good creative projects need).
1. Since we were doing this during the Covid-19 quarantine, all photos had to be done at home. We did make one exception, which you’ll see clearly below, however were still able to be socially distant to make it happen (we were literally in the middle of nowhere).
2. We would only photograph her as women in other photographs. No paintings allowed, which limited the time-frame in which we picked our subjects from.
3. All images must be black and white – various tones were fine & I would match those as well as I could in post-processing.
4. All costumes had to be figured out from what we had at home. Again, with one small purchase (a crown from Amazon) – everything else came from within our home, or my mom who lives down the street. This made things extra tough, and also forced us to be more creative – which was a nice challenge to have.
Finally, Harper & I discussed at length what “cultural appropriation” was & why it was important to understand for this project. Two of Harper’s true heroes that she wanted me to photograph her as when we began, are Malala Yousafzai & Ruby Bridges. Although our intention in this project is clearly to respect the women we’re replicating portraits of, we would also never want to tread into the territory of anything that could seem remotely insensitive to religions or races. So while we were delicate in our choices, it’s important to note that we honored our female leaders from other races & cultures by discussing them at length, reading books, and watching films. While the images you see below are the creative side of our project, this was far more reaching than just the photos we made.
This project was a ton of work, and also a ton of fun. I couldn’t be more proud of my little Harp & the hunger she has to learn. I hope she always remembers this work we did together fondly, and more-so, that she carries a little piece of each of these amazing women in her heart as she grows.
(A quick quote from Harper under each photo – her summary of why each woman is important to her)
Credit: DN-Bildarchiv/ullstein bild via Getty Images
“There were people who came to kill all of the Jewish people and Anne’s family hid in a secret space. Anne wrote about her life and what it was like in her diary.”
Credit: Library of Congress, Washington D.C.
“Helen Keller was blind & deaf and her friend Ann helped her learn to write & speak. Helen wrote books and shared them with the world. Even though she couldn’t see and hear, she was still able to communicate and teach others.”
Credit: Gerhard Sisters, Photographer, c1914. Prints & Photographs Division
“Jane started Social Work in America to help kids & families. And she was part of the suffrage movement. Also she was the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.”
Credit: Library of Congress, Washington D.C.
“Jackie was married to John F. Kennedy, who was a president. She was smart & elegant. She was different than the other president’s wives.”
Credit: Morten Bjarnhof
“Jane learned about chimpanzees and when she came close to them they ran away, but eventually they allowed her to come close to them. She taught us to take good care of the world & animals.”
Credit: Irving Penn for Vogue
“Audrey wanted to be a ballerina but she was told she couldn’t. Instead, she became an actress and helped people around the world.”
Credit: New York Times
“Julia was the first woman to start a cooking show. She also made cooking fun, not like it was before that. She wrote cookbooks about French cooking.”
Credit: The New York Times Photo Archives (1936)
“Amelia was the first girl to fly by herself across the Atlantic ocean. Also, she was really really brave.”
Credit: Associated Newspaper
“Marie was the person who invented stuff for x-rays. She won the Nobel Peace Prize two times & was very smart.”
Credit: Terence Donovan/Camera Press/Redux
“Princess Diana wasn’t being fancy like other princesses. She stood up for want she wanted to do because she could be herself.”
Credit: Photographed by Imogen Cunningham
“Frida was a painter. When she got hurt, she kept painting from her bed. She was brave to paint in her bed even though it might have been very hard.”
Credit: I Love Lucy show
“Lucille was a smart business woman and she was funny and made goofy faces.”
Credit: Bettmann Archive
“Mother Theresa helped the poor people & also gave people food. She opened a home for people who were dying and she helped take care of them. She found a woman lying in the street & she picked her up & took her to the home. That’s why she opened the place for people that were dying.”
Credit: Bettmann Archive
“Sally was the first American female to fly in space. She knew she could be as brave as the boys, so she went into space.”
Credit: Photograph by Irving Penn / © Condé Nast
“Ruth is part of the Supreme Court & she fights for women’s rights. She’s been doing it a really long time.”
Credit: Library of Congress
“Winifred was the first woman to demand that girls should get the same amount of money as boys. But, she didn’t get a lot of credit for it but she fought very hard.
Credit: Granger Collection
“Susan wanted the women & men to get the same rights. She helped other women get the right to vote & fought for what was right.”
Credit: Martin Schoeller for TIME
“Taylor is a famous musician who fought for the right to be paid correctly for her music. She is also one of my favorite singers.”
Credit: Getty Images
“Billie Jean King was a tennis player who said ‘if you think I’m bad at tennis, then let’s play’. She went up against a very good guy at tennis & she beat him.”
Credit: Michael Brown/Columbia University
(Also, my Harper’s namesake)
“Harper wrote a book called To Kill a Mockingbird and it was about civil rights. She used writing to tell people that everyone should be treated nicely.
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I wanted to make sure that Harper realized at the end of this project that while each of these women are incredible & did beautiful work, there’s an important piece to keep in mind.
We aren’t them. You aren’t them. You’re YOU. And that’s even more amazing.
I don’t know what is in store for her little life, but I know she’ll do big things. So we had to also take a photo of Harper as herself. In color because she is the most colorful human there is. She chose her outfit, activity & stance for this last photo – I just shot it.
I asked her what she would say to all the girls in the world if she could speak to them. Here’s what she said.
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