Here's the fifth part of my Self-portraits series. Part 1 is here; Part 2 is here; Part 3 is here; Part 5 is here.
During his long career the great photographer Willy Ronis, who died in 2009 at 99, took a great many self-portraits. Here is a generous sampling.
Willy Ronis, Self-portrait in the paternal studio, Paris, 1935.
Ronis was an assistant in his father's portrait photography studio at 46 rue de Lagny. The following year his father died, and Ronis went out as a freelance photographer.
Willy Ronis, Autoportrait, L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue (Vaucluse), 1978.
"The composition of this photograph providing for a vertical framing, the usual disorder of my office has been slightly rectified for reasons of balance in the composition."
Willy Ronis, Autoportrait, la Giudecca, Venise (Italie), 1981.
Willy Ronis, Autoportrait, Paris, 1998.
Willy Ronis, Autoportrait, 1937.
Willy Ronis, Autoportrait dans le 20e arrondissement, Paris, 1985.
"My steps lead me, this late December morning, down rue des Couronnes, where a large store mirror offers me the surreal image of a mannequin incongruously abandoned in this room and, successively reflected in the window glass then in a mirror erected in the background, the double reflection of my person."
Willy Ronis, Marie-Anne & autoportrait, Venise (Italie), 1981.
Willy Ronis, Autoportrait, Venise (Italie), 1981.
"On June 13 in a recess of a souvenir shop, I made this self-portrait between two mirrors which are reflected in the abyss."
Willy Ronis, Autoportrait, L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue (Vaucluse), 1976.
"This self-portrait was obtained by the calotype process, which dates from the origins of photography (Talbot, Bayard, etc.). I used my chamber 10 x 12.5 cm. I slipped into the frame, instead of the 10 x 12.5 film plane, a sheet of extra-thin sensitive paper. I posed about eight seconds to obtain a paper negative which gave me by contact, under the light of my enlarger, a positive image. And it is this photo that I re-photographed to obtain a classic 10 x 12.5 cm negative."
Willy Ronis, Autoportrait dans une enseigne, rue Royale, Paris, 1948.
"What was I doing on rue Royale, on this beautiful early summer morning? Perhaps I had left the offices of 'Life', place de la Concorde, and decided to take the metro to the Madeleine. Still, the sight of the giant glasses of the optician Leroy, forming a quadruple witch's mirror, had germinated in my head the idea of a baroque self-portrait. I got permission to step over the banister of the first floor window (the manager must have been a sportsman who trusted me), and here is the result. I did not reverse left-right the negative, as one usually does for a portrait in a mirror, because the truth of the environment had to be respected."
Willy Ronis, Autoportrait, Leningrad, 1986.
"October 20 in the morning, from our apartment no. 659 at the Leningrad Hotel. The morning sun allows me this self-portrait in the large mirror in the bedroom. I cracked open the window and climbed onto a stool for a bird's eye view of the Neva. I waited to include the bus and two cars driving on the platform."
Willy Ronis, Tandem paraglider over Valmorel (Savoie), 1992.
"I decided to go for a week of downhill skiing in Valmorel, certainly for the last time, given my eighty-two years. Back at the course office, I see three paragliders weighted by two characters each moving in the sky. The employee tells me that we can register. The next day, here I am in the air. Of course, I took my Minox with me. I am firmly attached to my monitor, my back against his body; my skis are between his. I photograph part of the village. My point of view is slightly offset to my right, which explains the disparity of the two skis: his right ski on the right, mine on the left; our two left skis are out of frame, to the left of the frame."
Willy Ronis, Autoportrait en parachute, La Ferté-Gaucher (Seine-et-Marne), 1995.
"Spurred on by my paragliding flights, I went, medical certificate issued by a paratrooper doctor, to the sports parachuting center of La Ferté-Gaucher, on September 6, in the company of a young friend who decided to jump from the same plane. For the jump shown here, I had equipped myself with a 24 x 58 mm scanning panoramic camera (Horizont). There I operated during the gliding flight following the free fall from 1,500 meters. We see behind me my instructor, Bob Martinez, to whom I am firmly attached."
Willy Ronis, Autoportrait aux flashes, Paris, 1951.
"In this photograph, one side of the face and the corresponding side of the torso receive the flash of a small magnesic bulb, moreover dampened by tracing paper (because of the proximity of the source). The hand in the air holds the auxiliary lamp holder (stronger bulb) which violently illuminates the ceiling and ensures the indirect lighting of the whole of the field (as well as the frosted glass of the Rolleiflex whose aiming lens returns the illumination)." This, I think, is one of the greatest of all photographic self-portraits.
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