Rosalind Solomon - Photography

Photography

Solomon's work with the Experiment in International Living brought her to Japan where she stayed with a family near Tokyo. There Solomon began to use an instamatic camera to communicate her feelings and thoughts.

Upon her return to the United States, Solomon photographed regularly. She purchased a Nikkormat in 1969 and in the garden shed she processed 35mm black and white film and printed her first pictures. In 1971, she began intermittent studies with Lisette Model during visits to New York City. By 1974 she was using a medium format camera.

In 1975, Solomon began photographing at the Baroness Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She photographed people recovering from operations, wounds, and illness.

In 1977 and 1978 Solomon lived and worked in Washington where she photographed politicians and completed a series; Outside the White House.

In 1978 and 1979, she photographed in the highlands of Guatemala. Her interest in how people cope with adversity, led her to witness a shaman’s rites and a funeral. She also made a series of pictures in Easter processions.

In 1980 she was award a Guggenheim Fellowship, recommended by John Szarkowski and Lisette Model.

In 1980 – 1982, Solomon made several trips to Ancash, Peru. She made photographs in cemeteries where the damage of a 1970 earthquake was still apparent. She continued photographing shamans, cemeteries, funerals and other rituals. She also photographed people of a subsistence economy surviving the extremes of life through Catholic, evangelist, and indigenous rites.

With a fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies, in 1981 Solomon began photographing festival rites in India. She found an expression of female energy and power in the forms of the goddess figures created in the sculptors’ communities of Kolkata (Calcutta). In 1982 and 1983, she continued this work. While there, she photographed artists, including the painter, Ganesh Pyne and the filmmaker, Satyagit Ray. She also made portraits of the Dalai Lama and photographed Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

1987 - 1988, Solomon photographed people with AIDS alone and with their families and lovers. In 1988, the exhibit, Portraits in the Time of AIDS was mounted at the Grey Gallery of Art, New York University.

In 1988, with concerns about the rise of ethnic violence in the world, she made her first trip to Poland. In 2003, she returned to work again in Poland. In 1988 Solomon’s interest in race relations and ethnic violence, took her to Northern Ireland, Zimbabwe and South Africa. She continued the project in 1989 and 1990 in Northern Ireland and South Africa. In the nineties, she visited hospitals in Yugoslavia and rehabilitation centers for victims of mines in Cambodia, and photographed victims of the American/Vietnam War near Hanoi.