T he British photographer Franki Raffles (1955-94) died shockingly young, as a result of complications following the birth of twin daughters. But by then she had already amassed almost 40,000 images of women at work the world over. Her photographs are as strong as their subjects.
Raffles photographed women in the Philippines, Israel and China , the Orkneys, Mexico and Ukraine. She portrayed harvesters at dawn and cleaners at midnight, seasonal onion pickers, part-time teachers and lifelong factory workers. She was a tireless activist of the camera.
Her photographs amounted to campaigns – look and learn, see what is going on, what it is like for these women, then do what you can – sometimes with a specific end in mind. Anyone who waited at the bus stops of Edinburgh in the 80s, for instance, as I did, will remember Raffles’s devastating photographic protests against male violence. I have never forgotten her image of an elegant woman in a New Town flat, leafing through a magazine before a working Georgian fireplace.
Above runs the caption: “She lives with a successful businessman”. Below runs the punchline, so to speak: “Last week he hospitalised her”. Some of the images from this campaign could, alas, be run all over again at British bus stops today.
After a philosophy degree at St Andrews University, Raffles moved to the remote village of Callanish on the Isle of Lewis in the 1970s. There she worked as a self-employed weaver for the Harris tweed industry to supp.