RESTLESS WOMEN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21471, 20 April 1933, Page 3

RESTLESS WOMEN

LACK OF REPOSE Do the women of to-day lack composure P Tlioy are too restless to sit still long enough to have their photographs taken by the method of fifty years ago. This criticism was made by ono of London's prominent society photographers, after contrasting photographs of the modern and Victorian eras. Beautiful Lady Randolph Churchill stands in lier riding habit of 1885, at tho foot of her stairs, serenely holding in a seemingly immovable hand a hunting crop. Her large eyes seem to gaze at ono with an enviable unchanging calm. This pose was photographed in thirty seconds. In contrast is an atmospheric portrait of Miss Harriet Cohen, the pianist. She is about to play. Her hands are poised on the keyboard of her piano. She listens for tho striking of the first chord. Everything about her suggests suspended movement. This was photographed in half a second. Why cannot the modern woman sit still for thirty seconds? It is that we appear to be sitting quietly and composed, says the photographer, but wo lack the immobile poise, the control over our nerves which made for Lady Randolph Churchill's clear portrait. Fifty years of crowded life has lost ns not only the power to express "stilllife," but also the inclination. To-day we demand the record of a fleeting mood, the quick expression of an idea. Our background becomes a part of us, indistinct, diffuse, and only the modern camera, with its splitsecond lens, can flash us in the lightning changes of our lives.