Nan Goldin

Documentary photographer, Nan Goldin started her photography career during her teenage years. Her work has always heavily focused on the people who surrounded and were involved in her life. Her lifestyle is shown to be a subculture of living in the transsexual communities of Boston and New York, presented in her images of this glamorous way of living but also holds elements of the darker side of violence and drugs. In the documentary "I'll be your mirror" by filmmaker Edmund Coulthard,  it shows Goldin explaining her life that is captured through her images of the people who are and once close to her. The document of her life and events of times in her life is what makes the images so candid and interesting, which holds the connection of emotion that is apparent of what Nan had with these subjects in the photographs. The images hold a narrative of the certain experiences her and her friends had. During the documentary, it shows how much trust the subjects had with Nan because they were a family, which even though she is not in the images the feeling that it is her life and that she has a relationship with these people is still there. The experiences of violences and AID's in Nan's life is definitely apparent in her image because of the dramatic sense and honesty it shows. She also explains in the film how her work just happens and is never planned "I've never believed in a decisive portrait of someone" she states, which is what makes her work so successful in how she has captured these people in their worst and best moments, that has nothing to hide. The way Nan Goldin's lifestyle and career has been joined together presents a journey that is so personal has made her one of the most well known and successful photographers of this day because of the connection between her subject's and herself. They are moments in time that are frozen but show the life within it that is full of emotion that has featured throughout her lives work and have became physical memories. The images that I have included below are what I feel are relevant to what I have mentioned above. They show exactly what her life include, with the environment that is shown to the emotion on her subject matters faces. It is what has made Nan Goldin so iconic because her photographs are full of truth. There is nothing to hide in these images, you can feel the stories within them which makes you want to know more.