Women In Medicine: A Celebration Of Their Work

Rating:
Summary: A visual display of women on the job
Review: 80 percent of modern health care providers are female, but there is little mention of this excess in discussions of health care provision. Ted Grant and Sandy Carter, a photojournalist and freelance photographer, decided to collaborate on this photographic tribute to all women medical professionals from doctors to med techs: their WOMEN IN MEDICINE is both a visual display of women on the job and a survey of how women have contributed to the medical profession.


Rating:
Summary: A must for every women in health care
Review: Photograpy that stimulates the artistic eye, and uplifts the spirit of any women working in health care. Pictures mainly of physicians, technicians and nurses. While paging through this book, I had an overwhelming sense of appreciation for women working in health care, and an inspiration to be there for those in need.

Rating:
Summary: Documentary Photography At It's Classic Best
Review: Ted Grant, one of Canada's best kept secret, and his protege Sandy Carter break no ground in Women In Medicine: A Celebration of Their Work. There is nothing new here. Instead, they present us with a work of classic documentary photography; two outstanding photographers venturing forth into a world new to most of us, returning with a collection of photographic moments that together show us what it is like to be a woman in the male dominated world of medicine.

I say Ted Grant is a Canada's best kept secret because he is little known outside his own country. But there he is a true star in the field of photojournalism. For more than 50 years Grant has been shooting for major Canadian newspapers; his work is in the permanent collection of the Canadian national archives, and a few years back, he and Karsh of Ottawa, perhaps the best known classic portrait photographer of the past 50 years, received the same life time achievement award.

Women In Medicine: A Celebration of Their Work, will remind you of nothing so much as the LIFE Magazine work of W. Eugene Smith, inventor of the magazine photo essay. Look at the photos of these women in scrubs at the end of an endless shift, and you can't help think of Smith's classic essay, "Country Doctor." What makes Grant and Carter's work all the more impressive, is that unlike Smith, they neither set up any shots, nor did they use any flash or other supplementary lighting. Grant makes no bones about distaining the use of what he calls "twinkie" lights - flash. When the light disappears he just pulls out the Noctilux for one of his Leica M7s, and pushes his Tri-X a stop further.

While this is a book that will appeal to any woman in medicine, be she a physician, a nurse, a nurse midwife, or a tech of any type, and while it is also a book that demands a place on the bookshelf of anyone who loves a woman in medicine, it is first of all a book for anyone who loves classic, black and white, available light documentary photography.



Rating:
Summary: Shooting from the Shadow Side
Review: This is probably more classifiable as a fan letter or something rather than a review.

The book is good. The story is engaging, the forward and the introduction give a history of the subject, which I as a layman, do not know much about. You want to READ them from start to finish, unlike some other books where they are auxiliary. Then the photos...

This is what photojournalism is about. You are treated to an intimate look at scenes with these woman doctors. It is almost like it is movie set where the camera is right there, to show you the actions. Except that these are not rehearsed scenes or actresses, but real people in real hospitals. Make you wonder how they do it. They are like flies on the walls, with cameras on their necks. We know what Ted might say, "I just focus and shoot!" Sandy probably would say the same. I wish we all can focus and shoot like that.

And the lights. What mastery! I had a chat with a 4x5 landscape shooter over the weekend, and we were talking about tonal forms, the zone system, Weston and his peppers and all that. This is not like that. Ted just focuses and shoots - and the shadows on the faces are just right, and the bright lights don't distract or scream burnt-out highlights. They are just part of the images. Wow!

I have to say that the equipment fetish in me causes me to notice several shots with the creamy bokeh signature of the Noctilux. Of course I could be wrong in pegging them. No matter, lots to learn from books from this...

Thank you Ted and Sandy.