This freedom
to manipulate the colour in her images encouraged her
to take her experimentation forward on an artistic level
too. Her unique colour sense led her to undertake a
series of bold sorties which, in the case of a lesser
artist, would have been disastrous. She began to use
colour in startling combinations and juxtapositions,
photographing the auburn-haired actress Joan Maude and
the raven-haired actress Viven Leigh against a vibrant
red background, producing in the process two of her
visually most stunning images. She used colour in ways
only a woman would - sometimes sensually, sometimes
symbolically, to create a particular atmosphere or apply
subtle overtones to a narrative. Her use of colour was
adventurous and exciting, and so far ahead of her time
that many of her colour images are as fresh and appealing
today as they were at the time of their creation. Like
all true pioneers Madame Yevonde was never afraid to
take risks, and time and again she broke new ground,
taking colour photography to new levels of artistic
expression.
Other avenues
for her to explore sometimes opened up in unexpected
ways. She quickly found that the depth of focus available
with the automatic repeating camera back was quite shallow,
which would normally limit its scope for use. Madame
Yevonde's creative imagination enabled her to turn this
to her advantage in her personal work. Using exotic
fabrics and a variety of reflecting objects to separate
the colour, she succeeded in conjuring up exciting backgrounds
and foregrounds of coloured noise, against which her
subjects stood out, centre stage, in the sharpest focus.
This was a device she was to use in much of her personal
work.
Madame Yevonde's
contribution to the development and popularisation of
colour photography cannot be overestimated. She had
the foresight, courage and singlemindedness of purpose
to take the new medium and raise it to an almost unbelievable
level of perfection, despite the obvious reluctance
of the public to accept it, and dogged resistance on
the part of her fellow professionals. Above all, it
was her unique colour sense, her boundless imagination
and her tireless experimentation and innovartion that
enabled her to raise it to new heights of artistic expression,
and resulted in the creation of thousands of colour
images of exquisite beauty. Madame Yevonde has left
us a legacy of incalculable worth and beauty, for which
we should all be profoundly grateful.
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