Beeban Kidron became the fantastic photographer’s apprentice at 16 and learned the tricks, trials and triumphs of the businessAt 99 and after a extended stay in a nursing house, the death of legendary photographer Eve Arnold was hardly a surprise – though she may have been just a small annoyed to quit a hardly any months small of 100.I was very young when I was summoned to Eve’s flat in Mayfair. Under my arm was a pile of photographs taken during the previous year. Unfortunately I had spilt a jar of pickled beetroot over them just before leaving house. Fortunately I had managed to rinse most of the pink stains off however they were still a small damp, and a slight whiff of beetroot emanated from the envelope.On the intercom her voice was as deep as a male’s and as American as the movies – in no path suggesting the elegant and diminutive silver-haired figure that greeted my panting at the top of the fourth flight. “If you desire to be a photographer you must be fitter than that,” she pronounced. Eve took my photographs very seriously, she turned them over slowly, and when she looked up she offered me a job as her assistant. I muttered something about it being the day before my 14th birthday and having to go to college. She laughed an unbridled fulsome laugh, larger than her frame. “Well we will have to wait then … and by the path what’s with the beetroot?”Eve’s designation is rarely printed without the prefix “legendary”. Legendary pioneer for female photojournalists. Legendary white woman who went on the road with Malcolm X. Legendary for photographing every American president for four decades. Legendary Eve locate the average for a “fresh normal” in which we would see our stars “behind the scenes”. She photographed Marilyn in the bathroom with her skirt hitched up; Marlene Dietrich with no makeup; Anjelica Houston hugging her director daddy John and a young student Paul Newman before he had ever made a film. Legendary Eve deserved her tag: she went to China when it was closed, Afghanistan, Mongolia, Russia when it was the enemy – she was never deterred.On my 16th birthday, I got a call. The same gravel voice questioned if I “was or was not” going to leave college to be her assistant. I was and I did.Working for Eve meant doing whatever she said, whenever she said it – it wasn’t that she shouted – it was simply understood that her term was the first, middle and final.Her marvellous hospitality meant that I glimpsed a earth of human beings, many of whom appeared in her pictures, of politicians, actors, publishers, authors, artists as they traipsed up the four flights – more than one of them panting as she greeted them. It also meant hours in the dark with the slide projector spinning – the reassuring click of her colour slides dropping in and outside of pole position as she reviewed and edited, reviewed and edited, reviewed and edited until it was so late that she made up my bed on the couch.Sitting in the dark, faces would appear from parts of the earth I could not pronounce nor find on a map, alongside the most recognisable profiles in front of iconic locations – this was her gift.For Eve everyone was equal and all situations contained the potential for beauty and interrogation.She was an early adopter of colour – favouring a thick negative with rich hues and simple compositions – and she ruthlessly edited her own employment with a wicked sense of humour. “It’s not that we’re so fantastic, it’s that the others are so fucking mediocre.”By the age I was 17 I was up and outside – off to see the huge wide earth described by the thousands of Eve’s photographs I had marked. It was only then that she told me that every letter I had typed she had steamed open and re-typed since my spelling was so terrible; that her friends were always amused by my wide-eyed astonishment as I opened the door to find a mildly breathless household designation standing there … and that on reflection she thought I might consider becoming a filmmaker rather than a photographer. I would if I was younger.From Eve I learned: how to pack a suitcase – with a dress you could wear to a palace and shoes to run a marathon if required; how to gaze at pictures – for metaphor, form and truth; how to employment – until it was done; how to be kind to your fellow artist – judge the endeavour not the result; and how to be a friend – through thick and thin; and how to laugh – uproariously and often.I haven’t worked for Eve for more than 30 years – that privilege resides with Linni, her extended-term colleague and assistant. However she became my adviser and friend. And when my son was very sick shortly after he was born, she did the one body she knew how to do – she took his photograph – breaking her own rule of no baby pictures. It is one of those pictures, along side one of her with Marilyn, that adorn my office wall.Eve has many friends and whilst we mourn the loss of her – along with her son Frank, her daughter-in-code and her grandchildren – we are all agreed. It wasn’t that the others were mediocre; it was that Eve was so fucking fantastic.Beeban Kidron is a British film director best known for her adaptation of Jeanette Winterson’s autobiographical novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and for directing Bridget Jones: The Edge of Cause. She is co-founder of Filmclub, an educational charity in schools. PhotographyPhotographyMarilyn MonroeMalcolm Xguardian.co.uk © 2012 Twitter News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Employ of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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