Tina Barney (1945-) is an American photographer from New York. She began collecting photographs in 1971, which sparked her interest in doing her own work. In 1976 she and her husband moved to Sun Valley, Idaho, where she took photography classes at the local art center between 1976- 1979. During the 1980s Barney developed her photographic vision, focusing on the comfortable lives of the social elite; as a member of this class herself, she is able to photograph friends and family in intimate social settings usually unseen by the outside world. Barney’s work is characterized by rich colours and deep focus, achieved through controlled lighting, that capture the material details of the lives of her subjects.

Friends and Relations

Tina Barney has said, “I began photographing what I knew.” For much of the 1980s and 1990s, this meant taking pictures of her friends and family as they went about their daily lives in upscaled areas of Long Island, New York City, and New England. Employing a large-format, 8-by-10-view camera enabled her to create highly detailed images that retain their focus and richness even when made into four-by-five-foot prints. Barney was then, one of the first photographers to present colour work on a grand scale that rivalled most twentieth-century paintings. This scale also inspired a deliberate construction of the picture, at times requiring supplementary lighting and the direction of the sitters.

Her sitters obliged, indulging Barney and her camera at mealtimes, during down moments, and mid-conversation. Her sister Jill became a favoured subject for her photogenic nature and chameleon presence but Barney also photographed other family members, such as her brother Phil, Jill’s daughter Polly, and her own sons Tim and Philip, as well as her friend Sheila and her daughter Moya. Often, the backdrops for these subjects are their own highly decorated, overstuffed interiors. Floral chintz fabrics and wallpaper, heirloom paintings, and wood-panelled libraries striving for attention behind equally well-appointed figures. For example, the image ‘Jill and Polly in the Bathroom’ (1987), shows the two women paused mid-gesture as they navigate the coordinated confines of this particular room. While coordinated bathrobes and décor heighten the intensity of the scene, it is unclear whether Barney made this match or simply noticed it. The room’s suffocating space and smothering rose tones are eased only by Jill’s act of drawing back the curtain to reveal something beyond the home and outside its colour palette, a gesture that appears so natural it seems impossible to know if Barney choreographed it. These two details alone indicate an approach that easily merges qualities that photographic history has often thought distinct: candid immediacy, documentary realism, and tableau like direction.

Barney’s photographs expose the emotional and psychological currents that course just beneath the surfaces of perfect trappings and banal gestures. In ‘Jill and Polly in the Bathroom’, such tension is evident in Jill’s strained expression, Polly’s turn away from Jill, and the distance between them that persists even in the cramped quarters of such a small room.

Barney notes, “When people say that there is a distance, a stiffness in my photographs, that the people look like they do not connect, my answer is, that this is the best we can do. This inability to show physical affection is in our heritage.” While the myth that material comfort ensures personal contentment is an alluring one, Barney’s photographs undermine such illusions, even in later images in which the focus has shifted away from context to the personality and face of the sitter. In these more recent photographs of family and friends—many of which eliminate her directorial approach and allow for more self-presentation to the camera—Barney continues to make photographs distinct from family snapshots or formal group portraits in their refusal to serve as predictable commemorations of happy times, important gatherings, and ritualized affection.

What I like about these photographs is how Barney has captured different parts of family life, going from an image of a family gathering to a portrait of her sister. This shows how her family and friends react to Barney as a photographer as well as a family member or a friend and how these people spend their days, their routines and their own time. Like mentioned above, some of these images do not always look as though they are documentary photographs but more like a staged tableaux through the use of lighting, colour and compositioning of the subjects. From this look of feeling like the images are more tableaux is what I think attracted me to this series as even though it is a documentary series, the style of some photographs look as though there is a specific story to tell, just like a tableaux image.

I like how Barney has used the décor and colour around her to help create the style of her work, using it to help portray the subjects in her images,  gives the viewer a suggestion of what the person is like through the use the style of the rooms, the furnishings and decorations etc.  I think using this to her advantage, the audience is able to connect with the images and the subjects within the photographs too. The way Barney has utilised the lighting has created nicely lit images that highlight the subjects in the frame, giving them a complimentary look and shine and shadows too.

There series portrays a variety of shots from images of an individual to a small gathering of people to a bigger gathering of people, which this variety makes the series more appealing as not all shots are the same. The first image, ‘Jill and Polly in the Bathroom’ this image is engaging through the use of colour within the image, everything being harmoniously pink with just the slightest change in colour from outside the window contrasting with the bathroom. I like the use of the reflection of the mirror creating a bit more depth and detail into the frame. The second photograph, ‘Jill’ is a strangely interesting image because of the quite blank facial expression on Barney’s sister’s face as she stares into the camera lens. The colours in this shot work nicely together creating a natural look and feel to the image. The next image portrays a looks like a family gathering in the dining room, I think this is a good shot and is the opposite to the second photograph, going from quite a close image of a person to a nice big spacious view of a room full of people, giving it quite a grand nature to the image. And the last print, ‘Marina’s room’ the look, style and feel to this photograph instantly feels like a tableaux image because the use of the natural lighting coming into the room and highlighting to the centre of the frame, illuminating the young girls dress which then draws the attention nicely to the contrast of the shadows resting on the man and to the right of the frame.

Barney’s work with the style of looking like tableaux images separates her series from the other artist I’ve looked at, the way she has utilised the lighting and the colour within her surroundings has created intriguing images that tell a story naturally. She’s carefully waiting and composed whether naturally or not a variety of photographs that illustrate the various different parts of family life.