Portraits of the 'invisible age'

Elaine Vizor is 58 years old. She is a wife, mother, grandmother, retired teacher, registered social worker and passionate photographer. Her life to date, both personal and professional, has been rich and fulfilling but like many women of “a certain age” she has – at times –felt overlooked and under-valued.

So when it came to choosing a theme for her final MA photography show Elaine decided to explore the idea of the invisible age, an age when women exist but are unseen. She wanted to shine the spotlight on her contemporaries and celebrate the intrinsic value and worth of women over 50. Her final show, entitled Now you See Me, featured a selection of beautiful portraits of friends, relatives, and former colleagues, photographed in landscapes across the UK with personal significance.

Elaine’s use of fill in flash, a low horizon and the centrality of each woman in the frame ensures they are very much visible. It is a technique she borrowed from deadpan photographers such as Rineke Dijkstra who show people in their natural state devoid of emotion.

Like Dijkstra’s portraits of teenage bathers, Elaine’s women look straight into the camera, dominating the image but giving little away about themselves.

Elaine, from Spring Gardens, near West Auckland, explains: “Now You See Me is about women over 50 and the invisibility, negativity or discrimination many feel or experience in this stage of life. It is about using photographs as metaphors, celebrating the intrinsic worth of older women and combating negative stereotypes of ageing. Many women feel overlooked and I think the media has played a part in this. Older women are not considered as desirable as younger women, while male presenters remain on our screens until they are old and grey.”

Elaine highlighted two high profile examples, Arlene Philips who at 66 was replaced by the then 30-year-old Alesha Dixon on the BBC show Strictly Come Dancing; and Miriam O’Reilly who won a landmark ageism case against the BBC for her dismissal from Countryfile in 2009. “I definitely think there should be more older women on the television and not just on shows aimed at other older women,” Elaine adds.

Last year, Elaine entered one of her portraits in the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize, a contest that attracted more than 4,000 entrants from 1,000 international photographers. To her delight, the photograph, of her long-time friend Kathryn Gordon, was one of 60 to be shortlisted. It will be on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London until Sunday, as part of the Taylor Wessing exhibition.

Kathryn, who was 60 at the time of the portrait, is pictured in front of the Forth Bridge near her home city of Edinburgh.

In a blurb to accompany the picture in Elaine’s MA portfolio Kathryn recounts her own experiences of ageism. “Recently I got on a bus with my friend; my intelligent, gifted, caring, sensitive, interesting friend, who took a couple of seconds to place her bus pass on the scanner,” she says. “The driver didn't know the stop we wanted but unabashed said cheerily, 'Aye, Ah know what yous are like.' Then, he smiled at me as I paid, 'Oh, you must be younger’... Should I have confessed I'd forgotten my pass?

“I could feel myself fade as I made my way to a seat, alternating between amusement and a hint of outrage for my ever gracious friend. I am very grateful for my bus pass but am also finding that I'm bumping into dismissive attitudes more.”

Elaine’s subjects include a teacher, musician, vicar, occupational therapist, doctor, medical secretary and baker. Yet, with the exception of Canon Jane Grieve who is pictured in her dog collar, none of this can be gleaned from their portraits. They are simply women pictured just as they were that day. There is an honesty and openness to the portraits, with the subjects standing tall and proud.

At 82, Ena Gowland is the oldest of Elaine’s subjects. The talented baker lives a few doors down from the photographer and is pictured in her pinny. “I was in the middle of baking some cakes when Elaine came over so I wasn’t wearing anything special,” she says. “I love the portrait. My life revolves around my home now I’m retired. I’m a home baker but we used to have a shop in Evenwood and I also had a stall at Barnard Castle market. I was known as the cake lady, but once you retire I find people don’t notice you anymore.”

Elaine hopes her portraits will challenge negative stereotypes about older women and also inspire women of all ages to follow their dreams.

“For me, having achieved the MA Photography was the fulfilment of a dream in itself and to be shortlisted in the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize is the icing on the cake,” she says. “It’s an amazing thing and something I could never have envisaged would happen. It’s never too late to learn a new skill or have a go at something that really interests us and may seem out of reach.”

Now You See Me will be exhibited at Greenfield Arts, in Newton Aycliffe, from Thursday, July 2, to Wednesday, July 22.