Ruth Orkin

The perfect primer on American photographer, photojournalist and filmmaker Ruth Orkin. Ruth Orkin (1921–85) always dreamed of becoming a filmmaker, and although that ambition was thwarted until later in her career, she quickly found other ways of engaging with the world of images. She was given her first camera at the age of ten and by the age of seventeen, she was cycling across America from Los Angeles to New York, documenting her trip in albums of annotated photographs. In the early 1940s she settled in New York, joining the Photo League and making her name with photo stories for major magazines such as Life, Look and This Week. Featuring 74 images that range from celebrity portraits to bird’s-eye views from her apartment window, from children at play to the experiences of a lone American tourist in Italy, this title in the Photofile series reveals the ways in which Orkin’s photography allows the humanity and charisma of her subjects to shine through. The Photofile Series Photofile brings together the best work of the world’s greatest photographers in an attractive, accessible, pocket-sized format. Handsome and collectable, the books are printed to the highest standards. Each one contains over sixty full-page reproductions printed in superb duotone, together with a critical introduction and a full bibliography.