Inspirational 'American Beauty' Photographs By Claiborne Swanson Frank
Georgia O’Keefe once wrote to Mabel Dodge Luhan, “I feel there is something unexplored about women that only a woman can explore.” With this in mind, we present the work of Claiborne Swanson Frank, a photographer living and working in New York. Swanson Frank was formerly Anna Wintour’s assistant at Vogue, and from the photos below we can see the magazine’s influence on this budding photographer.
We talked to Swanson Frank over the phone as she walked her dog and answered questions about her work. Slightly breathless, she was excited to discuss her debut photo collection from Assouline, titled, “American Beauty" -- which features over 100 photos of inspirational women from their twenties to mid-forties.
After taking a class, she decided to follow her dream of becoming a professional photographer in 2010. Her first project was “Indigo Light” -- a series of 29 portraits of her female friends and family members that present the women on their own terms. To Swanson Frank, portraiture is a collaborative process; she works with each woman to present her at her very best, but also remembers that the clothes should always be the woman’s own; it’s not a fashion shoot, but a moment of being, crystallized in time.
CSF: To be a woman in America is such a gift because we have such a freedom to express ourselves and to celebrate our accomplishments. I wanted to tell that story through portraits of these women, through these conversations. There’s been two wars, the collapse of the economy, 9/11, and women in America are wildly different now than ever before -- this really hasn’t been explored on this level before. This is the new creative guard, in a sense.
We talked to Swanson Frank over the phone as she walked her dog and answered questions about her work. Slightly breathless, she was excited to discuss her debut photo collection from Assouline, titled, “American Beauty" -- which features over 100 photos of inspirational women from their twenties to mid-forties.
After taking a class, she decided to follow her dream of becoming a professional photographer in 2010. Her first project was “Indigo Light” -- a series of 29 portraits of her female friends and family members that present the women on their own terms. To Swanson Frank, portraiture is a collaborative process; she works with each woman to present her at her very best, but also remembers that the clothes should always be the woman’s own; it’s not a fashion shoot, but a moment of being, crystallized in time.
CSF: To be a woman in America is such a gift because we have such a freedom to express ourselves and to celebrate our accomplishments. I wanted to tell that story through portraits of these women, through these conversations. There’s been two wars, the collapse of the economy, 9/11, and women in America are wildly different now than ever before -- this really hasn’t been explored on this level before. This is the new creative guard, in a sense.
