Net Mole: The Photography Of Toni Frissell

The Lady In The Water

Weeki Wachee spring, Florida taken by toni frissell 1947.

It was while working as a staff writer at Vogue that the then editor Carmel Snow, suggested to Frissell that she should try photography. Frissell had learned photography from her brother, the documentary film-maker Varick Frissell, who worked as an apprentice to Cecil Beaton, who she herself later apprenticed to. Frissell was also then mentored by Edward steichen, but it was as a staff photographer for Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Sports Illustrated, were she was the first woman on the staff, that she showed her talents.

Girl In Tennis Outfit Seated ON Wall 1947.

Version Of This Picture Published in: Harpers Bazaar. (1947 February).

Her photographs were often set outdoor with the settings emphasizing active women and nature, later she would adapt this style to act as a commentary on the human condition.

The original supermodel Dovima Montego Bay, Jamaica 1947.

Toni Frissell Collection (Library of Congress).

In 1941, Frissell volunteered her photographic services to the American Red Cross and then the Eighth Army Air Force, before becoming the official photographer for the Woman's Army Corps, were she took thousands of images of nurses, front-line soldiers, WACs, African-American airmen, and orphaned children.

Model On Boat With Man Rowing 1946.

Toni Frissell Collection (Library of Congress). Version Of This Photograph Published in: Harper's bazaar, November 1946.

While Frissell photographed subjects as diverse as the "Tuskegee airmen" and the 1968 Republican National Convention, she is perhaps best known for her pioneering fashion photography and her informal portraits of the famous and powerful in the United States and Europe, such as Winston Churchill and the kennedy clan.

Frissell also also published photographically illustrated versions of A Child's Garden of Verses (1944), [Bermuda]:The Happy Island (1946), Mother Goose (1948) and The King Ranch, 1939-1944 (1975)

Fashion model underwater in dolphin tank, Marineland, Florida
Toni Frissell Collection (Library of Congress). Similar image published in Vogue, October 1939.