here is a photograph of filmmaker Shirley Clarke taken in New York in 1962 that demands the viewer’s attention. Clarke, wearing all black, is surrounded by other independent and documentary filmmakers. She is in the dead center of the image, her eyes looking up, staring straight into yours. Her gaze is so powerful that you forget that amongst that group, she is the only woman filmmaker, a title she would carry for much of the 60s. For documentary filmmaker Immy Humes, this is the photograph that started it all.
For the past five years, Humes has been working on a film about Shirley Clarke, whose only full-length feature film, The Connection, was subject to several court cases regarding censorship in New York in the 1960s. But stumbling on this photo of her while doing research ignited Humes’ personal obsession with finding and collecting photos of what she calls “only women.” Humes’ years of cataloging culminated in her first book called The Only Woman, a compilation of photographs spanning time, space, race, cultures, and occupation, depicting lone women as they made their way into a man’s world. “I stare at them and wonder who these women are and how they felt and what these men think they were doing,” says Humes.
Atlas Obscura spoke with Humes about her interest in creating this book, how the concept of the “only women” opens up a conversation about representation and patriarchy, and what she hopes her readers will understand when they see these photographs.
