Mrs Neustaelter?
Not Mrs Neustaelter!
Alice Springs comments in her illustrated autobiography
She was once better known as June Browne who during the 1950s played the part of the nurse in the BBC radio series ‘The Flying Doctor’. When her husband had the flu she took his place and photographed a well known image advertising the French cigarette Gitannes. When he was paid a cheque for her trouble she knew that she was launched on a new career and Alice Springs the photographer was born.
Oh yes, her husband’s name was Neustaelter, no doubt you’ve heard of him? He was a very famous photographer. Ah I almost forgot after he left Germany fleeing the Nazis he changed his name to Newton. I wrote about his autobiography here, and also here.
But Mrs. Newton deserves great credit for much of her husband’s success. She was the art director for all his books and other publications. She acted as his muse and she was also a highly talented actress, painter and photographer in her own right. He biography is gripping. It starts in suburban Melbourne but then rapidly moves into the outback of Australia where she was brought up on a farm.
Later she became an actress and met Helmut. The couple enjoyed great highs and lows, and seemed to disagree about little except houses and apartments where Helmut seems to have been more than a little autocratic, and June found many ways of getting her own back.
It is in tribute to both Helmut and June Newton that I shot this photograph of Irem today. You see I wanted to test the Fuji Finepix E900′s portrait ability at the widest setting of the zoom. Whilst I was impressed with the result I softened the image with a special filter that is sold as a Photoshop Plug, but also may be used with other applications. In other words this charming photograph of Irem is a test shot!
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May 9th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
[...] Take for example this photograph taken by Mrs Newton, [not really Irem took it]! In the original photograph virtually every blade of grass in the background was in focus as was your hero, and tiny heroine. [...]
August 4th, 2006 at 10:04 pm
[...] Kindly note: Guy Bourdin’s photograph, [the good photograph immediately above, not the boring one of 4 yachts], is displayed here as fair use. The Guy Bourdin Retrospective Exhibition is currently in its second year details of its location may be found here. The official website of the Helmut Newton Foundation, which includes his permanent exhibition and that of his art director and photographer wife Alice Springs can be found here. [...]