By José Manuel Serrano
Esparza
Two of the
pictures made by Claire Yaffa during her thirty-two years of photographic
coverage inside the New York Foundling Hospital between 1979 and 2011, hanging
in king size from the top area of the main hall arches of Plaza Hotel in New
York where the Celebration Gala for the 150th Anniversary of the New York Foundling
was held.
© Nicholas Kohomban / The New York Foundling.
On Wednesday October 2,
2019 the New York Foundling Hospital hosted a Gala at the Plaza Hotel,
celebrating its 150 years of service, as well as honoring Gregory B. Braca,
longtime friend and supporter, philanthropist and President and CEO of the TD
Bank.
The Gala, who also had the
attendance of Robert E. King Junior (Chair of Financial Services of the New
York Foundling Hospital), paid homage to the New York´s Foundling historic
beginnings, commemorated the long-lasting impact of the Foundling´s work with
children, adults and families over the past 150 years and celebrated the life
changing services provided by the organization today.
Claire Yaffa
with Bill Baccaglini, President and CEO of The New York Foundling, during the
Gala inside the Plaza Hotel in New York.
© Nicholas Kohomban / The New York
Foundling.
As a part of this event
which had an attendance of 500 guests, the photographer Claire Yaffa was thanked
at the beginning of the Gala for her amazing long-term photographic project of
thirty-two years photographing neglected, ill, abused, forgotten, disabled and
abandoned children inside the New York Foundling Hospital and its Crisis
Nursery, and was congratulated for the reprinting of 3,000 copies of the 2002
book " The Story of the New York Foundling Hospital " , written by
Martin Gottlieb (Deputy Cultural Editor of The New York Times) and including
contemporary pictures made by her.
Claire Yaffa
getting a picture during the Dinner Gala inside the Plaza Hotel in New York on
October 2, 2019, using a 24 x 36 mm format Leica M9 digital rangefinder
camera coupled to her beloved 6 elements in 4 groups Summicron-M 50 mm f/2
fourth version from 1979.
© Nicholas Kohomban / The New York Foundling
3,000 REPRINTED COPIES OF
A MILESTONE BOOK
Book " The
Foundling : The Story of The New York Foundling Hospital " from 2002, of
which three thousand reprinted copies have been made to celebrate the 150th
Anniversary of the organization. It includes an introduction by The New York
Times Assistant Managing Editor Martin Gottlieb and further pictures made in
2019 by Claire Yaffa, who was asked to document new help for children and
elders in very impressive new programs implemented by the New York Foundling.
©
jmse
The decision of the Board
of Trustees of the New York Foundling of reprinting 3,000 copies of the book
The Foundling : The Story of the New York Foundling Hospital, seventeen years
after its first edition in 2002, has been a wise movement, since it embodies
the values and ethos that have always been hallmark of this prestigious
organization which throughout 150 years of strenuous effort, unselfishness,
social awareness and attention to hundred of thousands of children and their
families, has managed to change the lives of many human beings, with its
invaluable help and care, a working raison d´etre and humanism epitomized by
people like Sisters Mary Irene Fitzgibbon, Carmela Joseph, Marilda, Genevieve,
Marie Bernard and others, the Fitzgeralds Family of the Year, Dr. Vicent J.
Fontana, Dr Joseph di Leo, Dr. Mayu Gonzales, Joseph Ackerman, Kathleen
McGlade, etc, who devoted their lives to strive upon improving the standard of
living and future possibilities of handicapped children because of disease,
abuse, malnourishment, abandonment and so forth.
All of it was masterfully
explained by the text of Martin Gottlieb and the contemporary pictures made by
Claire Yaffa.
A UNIQUE AND EXCEEDINGLY
TOILSOME CHALLENGE AS A PHOTOGRAPHIC ASSIGNMENT
© Claire Yaffa
After meeting Dr Vincent
J. Fontana (then Head of the Mayor´s Task Force on Child Abuse and Director of
the New York Foundling Hospital) for the first time in 1979 and watching the
unwavering level of commitment and personal effort of every member of the
organization (doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, sisters, etc) along with foster
mothers and families towards the children inside the New York Foundling
Hospital and its Crisis Nursery and the way in which they fought tooth and nail
to get productive and happy futures for them, Claire Yaffa thought that it was
worth documenting that very special and fascinating context.
But before doing anything,
she kept on doing visits to the New York Foundling Hospital and its Crisis
Nursery for some weeks more, trying to learn as much as possible about their
working methods and the amazing interactions between human beings occurring inside.
She realized from scratch
that to fulfill a photographic assignment covering what was happening within
both buildings would be a difficult and hard mission, because of a number of
reasons:
- It was indispensable not
to disturb doctors and nurses on getting pictures while they were working with
the children, boys and girls.
- It was necessary to
create a rapport with those children, boys and girls, most of them with special
needs of all kind, stemming from poverty, violent familiar backgrounds, abuse,
malnourishment, illness, abandonment, etc, and whose moods often changed.
- A further top priority
was to gain the trust of foster adults, something pivotal, since interactions
among those grown-up persons with the children, boys and girls would make up a
significant percentage of the long term photographic project.
- It dawned on her that
the very special nature of this photographic work would mean to get the
pictures at very different hours of the day, without any possibility of a fixed
schedule or calculating in advance how long it would take.
- The images had to be
taken always shooting handheld and using only available light.
- An utter degree of
immersion would be necessary, following the principles imparted to her by
Eugene Smith (great friend of hers and along with Gordon Parks her main teacher
of photography until his demise on October 15, 1978) and related to the working
method in The Country Doctor, The Jazz Loft and other projects accomplished by
the Genius from Wichita.
- The pictures had to be
made with the photographer going unnoticed. The children, boys, girls, foster
mothers and fathers, foster grandmothers, etc, shouldn´t appear looking at the
camera, to preserve the real atmospheres and intimacy of the depicted meaningful
instants.
CHOICE OF A LEICA
RANGEFINDER CAMERA AND STANDARD 50 MM F/2 LENS TO DO THE LONG TERM PHOTOGRAPHIC
PROJECT
Leica M6, the
model of analogue rangefinder camera with which Claire Yaffa made her long term
photographic project inside the New York Foundling Hospital between 1979 and
2011.
6 elements in 4
groups Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 4th version, a legendary lens designed by the
optical wizard Walter Mander in 1979 (it was the reference-class standard 50 mm
f/2 lens in the word until 2012), and steadily attached by Claire Yaffa to her
Leica M6 until 2009 and to her digital Leica M9 from 2009 hitherto.
Prior to start getting
pictures inside the New York Foundling Hospital and its Crisis Nursery in mid
1979, Claire Yaffa had been a photojournalist for The New York Times, working
with a medium format 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 Rolleiflex 2.8 fK7F Type camera with Carl
Zeiss Planar 80 mm f/2.8 lens, to which she would add a Nikon FM2 ( a
remarkable 100% mechanical camera featuring shutter speeds up to 1/4000th
second and flash X-sync of 1/250th second, highly resistant vertical metal
shutter blades made of lightweight titanium and able to work at extreme
temperatures between -40º and +50º C) with Nikkor 50 mm f/1.8 Ai lens and MD-12
motordrive in 1983.
But the excellent
Rolleiflex medium format camera was too bulky to get discretion during the
photographic act with indoor shots from a very near distance, and any 35 mm
format reflex camera would render excessive noise because of the swiveling movement of its mirror, which besides made unfeasible to get sharp pictures
under 1/45 s shutter speeds in dim light environments.
That´s why she decided in
1979 to acquire a Leica M4-2 rangefinder coupled to a
In 1978, one
year before Claire Yaffa began her long term photographic project inside the
New York Foundling Hospital, the optical wizard Walter Mandler had already
designed at the Ernst Leitz Midland, Ontario (Canada) factory the first
prototypes of the new Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 4th version with which he achieved
one of the greatest feats in the history of photographic optics, yielding
impressive resolving power almost on a par with the also mythical Summicron-M
50 mm f/2 DR, but clearly improving it in terms of contrast (exceptional and
incredibly homogeneous even at widest f/2 aperture) and sharpness. In addition,
aside from creating the best standard 50 mm f/2 lens in the world, he managed
to get a commendable cost/performance ratio in comparison with the very high
production cost previous Summicrons 50 mm f/2, not only without losing any
quality, but beating them in optical performance, including an increase in high
transmission and uniform color rendition from lens to lens, thanks to his
tremendous knowledge on different glasses properties, cost of materials, tools
used to manufacture the lenses, and many more things, including his fabulous
expertise and insight, applying common radii all over the lens and doing things
in such a way that the creation of this 6 elements in 4 groups Summicron-M 50
mm f/2 version 4 lens only needed four new tools for grinding and polishing,
with ther added benefit of an easier mechanical design.
6 elements in 4 groups
Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 version 4 designed by Walter Mandler in Midland, Ontario
(Canada), a wonderful lens that she has been using for 40 years.
© jmse
Five years later,
following the advice of his friend Cornell Capa and his wife Eddie Schwartz,
she bought a Leica M6 and attached it to the same Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 version
4, being this the combo with which she worked throughout twenty-five years, until
2009 when she acquired a Leica M9 digital 24 x 36 mm format rangefinder camera
meaning the German photographic firm flawless analogue/digital transition,
preserving the core values traditionally inherent to Leica RF analogue models.
This photographic gear was
much more adequate for the New York Foundling Hospital long term photographic
project, since the very small size and weight of the Leica M6 (138 x 77 x 38 mm
and 560 g) and the tiny Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 4th version (length of 43.5 mm,
maximum diameter of 53 mm and 240 g) substantially enhanced discretion and
chances to remain undetected on getting pictures.
In addition, the Leica M6
featured three further very valuable virtues:
© Leica Camera AG
a) The whispering,
virtually inaudible noise of the horizontal-travelling cloth focal plane
shutter with rubberized curtains, a highly valuable advantage when getting
pictures of the children, boys, girls and foster relatives from very near
distances, to avoid disturbing them and doing the photographic mission in an
unobtrusive way,
©
jmse
pressing the shutter
release button of the camera in a very quiet way.
b ) The stunningly short
shutter lag of 12 ms between the pressing of the shutter release button and the
exposure, enabling the photographer to get a great precision in the timing on
getting the picture at the defining split second, something that can make a
difference between a great photograph and a simply acceptable one.
© jmse
c) The exceptional 0.72x
viewfinder coupled to a top-notch viewfinder and making up a masterpiece of
opto-mechanical precision with more than 150 individual components.
This amazing VF allows a
very sharp and brilliant vision to the photographer together with an accurate
focusing even in exceedingly dim conditions, something fundamental for the long
term photographic project fulfilled by Claire Yaffa inside New York Foundling
Hospital and its Crisis Nursery.
A HISTORICAL TROVE OF
IMAGES
Here are some of the
pictures she made between 1979 and 2011:
© Claire Yaffa
Finding equilibrium at the
skilled nursing facility. A great frontal shot in which the photographer has
surprised the small child with happiness on his countenance while feeling
helped by the nurse and doctor. The child hasn´t detected Claire Yaffa´s
presence, so the face of the picture main character oozes spontaneity, optimism
and above all hope of future.
© Claire
Yaffa
A foster mother advances
slowly across a corridor inside the New York Foundling Hospital while helping a
very little child to walk.
The accuracy of the timing
by the photographer on pressing the shutter release button of the camera has
been amazing, since the left foot of both the woman and the creature has been
captured going forward, conveying a feeling of motion thanks to the slow
shutter speed used.
Moreover, the foster
mother is stretching her right arm and hand to grab the left hand of the child,
who on his turn is extending his left arm to reach the woman´s hand and find
help.
This is a highly symbolic
image abridging the core values of New York Foundling Hospital throughout its
150 years of history and its meaning as a safe harbor for children and mothers
in a world that too often had been unaccepting.
It´s a fleeting moment
photographed for ever, and thirty-five years after 1984 when the image was
made, goes on being a highly meaningful picture.
© Claire Yaffa
An image full of
encouragement and love.
A foster mother with a
very young girl inside the skilled nursing facility of the New York Foundling
Hospital. The creature has always needed to be on a small wheelchair, but is
feeling the elation, joy of living and support being vividly transmitted to her
by the smiling adult woman.
The photographer has been
successful depicting the mutual interaction between both human beings, while
going unnoticed at the moment of the photographic act.
The slow shutter speed
used has rendered both moving hands of the grow up woman blurred, greatly
fostering the dynamism of the scene.
© Claire
Yaffa
A highly stressful instant
between a teenager boy and his mother, who is rebuking him for some misbehavior.
An impressive image in
which the photographer has made a very fast and instinctive shot, shooting at
f/2.8 from an exceedingly short distance to highlight both persons.
It´s a very powerful
picture.
Both the mother and his
son feature great physical strength and character.
It´s apparent that the
woman has got a lot of authority over the boy, and simultaneously her face
reveals tons of suffer brought about by the difficult situation in which the
boy is immersed.
Because of the great
quickness with which the photographer has had to raise the Leica M6 to her
face, the countenance of the woman, who has been rendered with her open mouth
while speaking, appears slightly out of focus, something typical in this kind
of photojournalistic Leica images, as has often been explained by the expert in
History of Photography Michael Auer, but it doesn´t matter, because in this
kind of photographic genre the most important factors are to be at the adequate
moment and place, as near as possible to the subjects, and capturing the
defining instant.
Neither the woman or the
teenage boy have realized the presence of the photographer.
In addition, the very
tight frame made by the photographer after approaching to the utmost, greatly
enhances the drama of mother / son dialogue.
© Claire
Yaffa
A friendship blossoms.
Lovely image showing the sincere friendship between two needed children inside
one of the rooms of the New York Foundling Hospital.
In the same way as
happened with the rest of pictures made by Clare Yaffa during this long term
photographic project, the short tele lens nature inherent to the Summicron-M 50
mm f/2 4th Version lens used by her enabled to keep a security distance to
preserve the genuine atmosphere, intimacy and spontaneity of the depicted
instants, aside from rendering the photographed human beings in very natural proportions.
It´s an instant fraught
with tenderness between both children, powerfully strengthened by their eyes
looking at each other, their mutual smile and the left arm and hand of the boy
on the left hugging the shoulders of the one on the bed.
Needless to say that the
photographer has gone unnoticed, since both boys are focused on their chemistry
and yearning for playing and enjoying, in spite of their life full of needs.
© Claire Yaffa
Two children have just had
a dispute and are being scolded for it. The one on the right is blaming the
one lying on the floor for what has happened, while the latter is listening to
his words.
There are two very
powerful diagonal lines holding a sway over the image : a descending one with
the woman staring at the boy on the right, and an ascending one from the child
on the floor to the other one standing.
The image has got great
depth of field because of the probably f/8 or f/11 diaphragm selected taking
advantage of the abundant light entering through a window, though the shutter
speed is moderate and has rendered blurred the right hand on the standing
child, conveying a feeling of motion.
In addition, the opposite
directions of the children´s extended hands bluntly mean that each one is
defending " his truth " , and particularly the child on the right is
closed to any explanation coming from the one lying on the floor.
© Claire Yaffa
Image depicting the
ecstatic countenance of a mother sitting on a bed inside the New York Foundling
Hospital while her little baby girl is crying.
This is a very intimate
moment captured by the photographer from a very near distance, with a tight and
accurate framing encompassing the top area of her head and her fingers, while
holding the creature with both hands, and leveraging the top quality natural
light entering the room and begetting specific high key and low key areas on
the faces of both persons, rendered by the lens with praiseworthy level of
detail.
Once more, the short tele
nature of the Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 4th version has made possible the creation
of an excellent portrait, shooting handheld with available light at a wide
aperture.
The contrast and sharpness
attained by this lens is such that the gorgeous reproduction of the image in a
22.5 x 28 cm fill page size in the book is far better than this one and a
relish to behold for any lover of photography as a true haptic experience on
paper.
The level of happiness in
the mother, engrossed in her thoughts, is so colossal that she hasn´t even
detected the presence of the photographer being in front of her, at a distance
of around two meters, when she has pressed the shutter release button of her
Leica M6 rangefinder camera.
And the mother´s fingers
affectionately touching the baby girl´s toes boost the magic of the poignant
instant.
© Claire Yaffa
A blithe moment
experienced by a little boy suffering from sight problems. His facial
expression reveals glee and confidence. He does feel at home.
© Claire Yaffa
A very young pensive girl
on a wheelchair is trying to take out her trackie while a nurse of the New York
Foundling Hospital is about to help her with her right hand, because the left
one is grabbing the little girl´s aluminium crutches and sneakers.
The photographer has
captured a moment of introspection of the exceedingly young girl, absorbed in
her thoughts, and the slow shutter speed chosen by the photographer has yielded
the nurse´s moving forward right hand blurred, so a perception of motion is
attained.
© Claire Yaffa
A foster grandmother and a
child hug each other. The interaction between both human beings is captured at
its peak. Their closed eyes and their countenances straightforwardly suggest
utter bliss.
The very strong maternal
instinct of this woman along with her courage and love to spare can mean a better
future for the child.
©
Claire Yaffa
A father embraces his
daughters at the Foundling´s temporary shelter just before going away after
visiting them.
The photographer has
approached as much as possible, without being detected, and has made the
photograph from an almost perpendicular position to the father, whose gesture
of gaiety is very apparent while both little girls hug him.
Once more, Claire Yaffa
makes a tight framing, being at the core of action and capturing a highly
intimate and touching instant.
© Claire Yaffa
A mother holding her very
ill little daughter in her arms inside the skilled nursing facility of the
Foundling Hospital at 590 Avenue of the Americas.
The photographer has
captured the uncompromising level of effort and love of a mother, suffering and
sweating profusely in these circumstances.
This image is not fruit of
a day. A remarkable level of trust, empathy and respect must be gained through
many visits and strenuous efforts during weeks or months until being allowed to
get pictures like this in such a painful context.
© Claire Yaffa
Joseph Ackerman holding a
child in the Crisis Nursery of the New York Foundling Hospital.
Another highly symbolic
image in which the photographer has shot from an exceedingly near distance,
going unnoticed, with a very tight frame, capturing a defining moment in which
any observer can realize the huge level of love and effort fulfilled by every
member of this prestigious institution to help children.
The thrill and emotion
experienced by the doctor (Assistant Director of The New York Foundling
Hospital Crisis Nursery for many years) while holding the child on his right
shoulder is almost tangible, and his left hand, rendered in very large size
because of the great proximity of the photographer, conveys a message of help
and hope.
© Claire Yaffa
A mother with his son inside Blaine Hall, a
temporary residential center for children between 6 and 12 years old that was
placed inside the main New York Foundling Hospital.
The photographer has taken
advantage of the top quality natural light getting into the place to get an
excellent portrait.
The picture reproduced in
the book at full page 22.5 x 28 cm is far better than this image, and the level
of detail and contrast delivered by the Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 4th Version is
simply superb, following Oskar Barnack´s fundamental keynote of small 24 x 36
mm format negatives yielding great pictures,
© jmse
a philosophy enhanced by
Claire Yaffa through her expert use of a Leitz Focomat V35 Autofocus enlarger
© jmse
with Focotar 40 mm f/2.8
lens (with mechanical autofocus through a cam system working flawlessly
throughout its 3x to16x enlargement range, and sporting a diffused light mixing
box which makes printing the highlight areas on contrasty black-and-white
negatives easier than when using condenser type enlargers) to do her prints
from original 24 x 36 mm negatives.
© Claire Yaffa
A mother caring and
playing with a disabled teenage boy within Saint Agatha Home, which merged with
The New York Foundling Hospital in 1977 to better serve youth in the New York
Metropolitan area.
Throughout a fifty-one
years career as a professional photographer, having worked for the New York
Times, Associated Press, NBC, ABC, PBS and others media, five photographic books published
hitherto and a number of exhibitions held with her pictures at the
International Center of Photography of New York, the Hudson River Museum, the
United Nations, her landmark 100 Photographers-100 Portraits exhibition at the
Leica Gallery in Wetzlar (Germany) and others, the work she did during 32 years
inside the New York Foundling Hospital is the one of which she feels more proud
about.
See:
CLAIRE YAFFA 100 PHOTOGRAPHERS-100 PORTRAITS AT LEICA GALLERY WETZLAR: REMEMBRANCES OF A MILESTONE EXHIBITION
See:
CLAIRE YAFFA 100 PHOTOGRAPHERS-100 PORTRAITS AT LEICA GALLERY WETZLAR: REMEMBRANCES OF A MILESTONE EXHIBITION
And it couldn´t be other
way, because she got those pictures by dint of perseverance, love for the human
beings she photographed with her camera, unswerving commitment, countless
visits to the hospital, thousands of hours of very hard work and many more
things.
Edward I.
Koch, Mayor of New York, announcing Claire Yaffa´s exhibition at the International
Center of Photography in New York with pictures made by her inside the New York
Foundling Hospital.
Because she made those
images with her heart and soul, and her toil was important to better undestand
the admirable work of an institution which was pioneer in assisting needed
children, adults and families struggling with poverty, domestic violence,
disabilities, mental illnesses, etc, to give them the opportunity to reach
their full potential,
© Nicholas Kohomban /
The New York Foundling
through admirable and
carefully designed programs, in such a way that currently, after 150 years of
existence, the New York Foundling serves 30,000 people each year.