Reviews
Words of Praise – Press Reviews
Words of Praise
Portraits
“Of all the many photographs that have been taken of me, Juliet van Otteren’s is by far my favorite.”
Stephen W. Hawking
Author and cosmologist. Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, England.
“A work of surpassing beauty and mystery.”
Joyce Carol Oates
Award winning author, Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton University.
“Juliet van Otteren is a photographer in search of that bit of elusiveness we call the moment, and she captures it again and again in the net of her camera.”
Billy Collins
US Poet Laureate 2001-2003. Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College and Writer in Residence at Sarah Lawrence College.
“Juliet is not only fun to work with, but she also captures the portrait of the inner self.”
Lady Bronwen Astor
“There is a current of deep joy and self-confidence in me that is new. I think your photograph reflects all of this. I like that woman who is laughing at the camera… When he saw the picture, my husband said: ‘This is how I see you always, smiling, alert, with an open heart.’ So, thank you Juliet, for giving me a chance to see myself as Willie does: with loving eyes.”
Isabel Allende
Award winning author.
“A startling image, a little haunting and very intriguing, that has made me think about who I am and how I appear to the world.”
Susan Orlean
Author, New Yorker staff writer.
“Your work is beautiful, extraordinary. It’s not about beautiful bodies but about who you are, the relationship between people, the inner person inside. You capture the essence of people without hardly ever knowing them. You have amazing insights.”
Sarabeth Levine
Owner of Sarabeth’s Restaurants in Manhattan and creator of Sarabeth’s Kitchen.
“To recognize the spiritual dimension of every human being, and to capture it on film is no small task. This is Juliet’s great gift and she does it better than anyone I know.”
Juliet Hollister
Founder of The Temple of Understanding, a United Nations Non Governmental Organization.
For Juliet van Otteren, whose art is to capture the face behind the face. You are like the poet of photographers.”
Stanley Kunitz
U.S. Poet Laureate 2000-2001, New York State Poet 1987-1989, Pulitzer Prize winner, founder of Poets House, N.Y.
“Her photographs catch that incredibly sensitive split second of the juxtaposition between shadow and light, as only a master can do. It is this sense of observation that makes Juliet van Otteren a photographer brimming with realism that knows how to capture the innermost truth of her subjects.”
Pierre Chaigneau
Honorary Director of: Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain de Nice, France.
“What an amazing portrait!… Juliet is such a remarkable person, and her work is amazing to me.”
Elaine Pagels
Award winning author. Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University.
“Thank you so much for the lovely photograph – which I loved.”
Sylvia Z. Nasar
Award winning author, Knight Professor of Business Journalism at Columbia University.
“Juliet van Otteren knows how to make light and shadow dance till a photograph reveals the split second of deep telling. We can trust her quiet praise-worthy revelations.”
Yusef Komunyakaa
Pulitzer Prize winning Poet. Professor in the Council of Humanities and Creative Writing Program at Princeton University.
“Juliet’s portrait of me embodies the qualities I aim at in my writing: it is very simple, very direct, and very honest. As a result it doesn’t get in the way of its subject, but instead enables you to see that subject more clearly than you did before.”
Peter Singer
Considered the most influential philosopher since Bertrand Russell. Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University’s Center for Human Values.
“Juliet van Otteren uses her cameras like Rembrandt used his brushes – with total technical mastery and an artist’s eye for light and shape. Her skill at capturing a physical likeness in black and white is irrefutable. The enduring magnetic appeal of Juliet van Otteren’s portraits, however, lies in her ability, common to all great artists, to reveal tantalizing glimpses of the souls of her subjects.”
Horace Dobbs
Author, film producer and director, founder International Dolphin Watch.
“I dislike sitting for photographs or standing for that matter, but Juliet van Otteren manages somehow to make the process entertaining. Don’t ask me how. Like most true magicians she hides her art.”
Philip Levine
Pulitzer Prize winning Poet.
“I have waited for years for a photo like this. But now that I’ve seen it, I’m not sure I can describe what makes it so good. Is it the pose, the shadow, the light, the moment? Certainly the beauty and complexity are on a higher level than what other portraitists have come away with. Juliet van Otteren has a singular talent; she seems to see more than other photographers.”
Ted Conover
Award winning author.
“I find the portrait you took of me to be most extraordinary. You have truly captured a magnificent likeness of myself, unlike any other ever taken. I am very pleased indeed.”
Sir James Watt
Surgeon Vice Admiral. Knight Commander of the British Empire. Formerly: Medical Director General, surgeon to the H.M. the Queen and President of the Medical Society of London.
“The photograph is utterly great. Juliet catches things or realizes things that no other photographer is even aware of.”
Gerald Stern
Award winning poet.
“Dante thought that, after seventy, one should survive to the ‘perfect’ age of 81 (nine nines). Juliet’s benign portrait shows me looking rather wistful at an imperfect 72 (eight nines). In a very sweet and affectionate way she managed to make a lovely portrait.”
Harold Bloom
Award winning writer and one of the best-known critics of our age. Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University and Berg Professor of English at New York University.
“Juliet’s photos let her subjects open the door to the beauty that lies not just in their form, but also in their substance. She has a gift for expressing the truths of beauty, integrity and strength present in all of us and waiting to be seen. She allows us to look at ourselves with a sense of wonder.”
Judy Reynolds
Freelance Journalist, writer and photographer.
“What strikes me is how unlike a boy I finally look! The man you captured has life lines on his face and hair that clearly favors ‘salt’ over ‘pepper’. I have been ‘boyish’ for so long, my appearance as a man of middle-age, a playwright in mid-career, comes as something of a sobering shock. I like that my dark eyes are clear and focused, my hand firm. So thank you for your insightful work and for the impeccable print. I will see it as souvenir of this chapter of my life.”
Donald Margulies
Pulitzer Prize winning playwright. He teaches Playwriting at the Yale School of drama.
“I like the photograph a lot: it is myself, not exactly the way I carelessly think of myself, but someone I recognize very well.”
Robert M. Solow
Nobel Laureate and author, currently Foundation Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation in NY and Institute Professor Emeritus at MIT.
“It’s an elegant portrait, much closer to my self-conception than most. I like it very much.”
Richard Rhodes
Pulitzer Prize winning author.
“I’m so very excited about the photo. It’s a piece of ‘Chip’ that I will have with me forever. Although he has moved on to the other side, through you photo he will continue to make a difference. Thank you so much for having that gift. The combination of your eye and his soul will continue to move peoples hearts.”
Doreen Day
“I have never studied photography and yesterday really was the first time I “got” it. I always thought the photographer could only capture what was there already. I guess I had to see photos of someone I knew so well (Uther) to see what you can do with your pictures. It was amazing to see to the expression and emotion I knew was there inside but hadn’t seen outside. I never knew the “magic” involved. Very eye opening, I have a whole new appreciation for your art now, thank you.”
Sarah Hollis
“Soul searching is the sensation Juliet van Otteren’ s photography evokes. Each portrait, my daughter, myself, and the two of us together, is like a love letter. Juliet’s work has an impressionist beauty, while presenting the true essence of one’s soul. I love the casualness of my daughter’s stance, the slight touching of the toe, and the intensity of her personality, while revealing the sensitive side. I can view her image for hours and see more and more depth. Juliet has a unique sense of her subjects. She knows exactly when she has captured all the thoughts and feelings that go on behind the mask, which she so brilliantly did with my portrait. Blissful erythfulness are words that depict the mother – daughter portrnit. She entirely seized the love for my daughter that seeps through my body and the energy that whirls around our relationship.
Juliet’s photographs combine beauty, composition, light and emotion make all her work of the highest artistic quality. For these reasons I was inspired to commission her to portray my daughter and me. Knowing my family and I will have these moments captured for all eternity is a heartwarming feeling.”
Laura Tryon Jennings
“I feel that Juliet captured the innocence and essence of who I am with Midnight. Her work captures pure honesty and allows me to see my own true reflection unguarded and vulnerable. I see this unique relationship portrayed back to me in black and white and my heart overflows with joy and I am deeply grateful.”
Donna Berber
Heart of the Horse
“…Beautiful Book. I got shivers up my spine looking at the pictures. You have captured the soul of the horse. These are the best pictures of horses I have ever seen.” Temple Grandin
“Heart of the Horse is very beautiful.”
Michael Korda
Editor in Chief, Simon & Schuster, Inc.
“Juliet van Otteren’s photographs are so moving to me. She has captured not only the grace and the controlled power of her subjects, but their emotions also. Indeed, I can see the very souls in the eyes of some of the individuals she has photographed.”
From the Foreword to Heart of the Horse, a book of equine portraits by Juliet van Otteren, published by Barnes and Noble, September 2004.
Jane Goodall
Author and primatologist, founder, The Jane Goodall Institute and U. N. Messenger of Peace.
“A beautiful book! Vivid – dreamlike – “mystical” – visceral.”
Joyce Carol Oates
Award winning author, Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton University.
“The rarest of all photographers, one who captures the Spirit of the Horse and the Heart of authentic emotion.”
Linda Kohanov
Author of The Tao of Equus, speaker, riding instructor and horse trainer.
“When I look at Juliet van Otteren’s photographs, I feel that I am part Horse.”
From the text to Heart of the Horse a book of equine portraits by Juliet van Otteren, published by Barnes and Noble, September 2004.
Alan Lightman
Award winning author. Professor of Humanities at MIT.
“Heart of the Horse, a wonderful publication and documentation which is unique among the equine literature I know. Congratulations on presenting this most beautiful animal in an entirely new light.”
Bernhard Starkmann
Founder and CEO Starkmann Limited, art collector and Tate Gallery Trustee.
Press Reviews
Articles
Austin Women (PDF)
“The rarest of all photographers, one who captures the spirit of the horse and the heart of authentic emotion,” wrote Linda Kohanov, author of The Tao of Equus. (continue)
L’Aperitivo Illustrato (PDF)
“van Otteren became the first photographer ever to be granted an artist’s working visa to the U.K.” (continue)
Portraits
“Juliet van Otteren’s photograph (of Kathleen Jessie Raine) is a rather harshly lit and striking close-up study of the poet. Such lighting can often produce an unflattering result, but here the photographer has manipulated the flat white areas and used these to enhance the quality of the sitters eyes, which, together with Raines’s slight hint of a smile, bear witness to the depth of her humour and understanding.”
DoubleTake, National Portrait Gallery, London
“Juliet van Otteren believes we all have a voice. She has the ability to capture the beauty of the soul in her portraits.”
The Hartford Courant’s North-East Magazine
“You want to transmit your wonderment at her technique, so carefully hidden, you who knows the difficulties of photography, you who knows the difficulties of translating a life’s instant… but you speak French and she English…so you express with your hands your anguish at having to photograph her. She laughs so joyfully that the barriers fall, then she chooses the framing, great art in its simplicity.”
La Semaine de Provence, France
“From one face to the other, everything is difference, each subject unique, the choice of printing vast…seeming to announce the other-world of the artist where the human being is a thing of beauty.”
Nice-Matin, France
“Most portrait photography focuses on pretty faces, sexy bodies. The “vibrational” photography of Juliet van Otteren seeks to capture the beauty of the soul.”
Connecticut Magazine
“For the town of Cuneo, The Language of the Body, a retrospective exhibition of more than a hundred black and white images by Juliet van Otteren, represents an introductory study to an important aspect of contemporary art”
La Stampa, Italy
“An artist-patron relationship is a true collaboration and has its own rewards. A photographer, (Juliet van Otteren), brings skill and passion and can show you a side of yourself (or a beloved one) that you never knew existed.”
The Robb Report
Click here to view the article
Heart of the Horse
“In the book Heart of the Horse, the Horses in the black and white photographs speak to us from the pages. Juliet van Otteren reveals the ability of the horse to communicate without words. The photos encourage us to contemplate the elements and layers that exist between humans and animals that are often indefinable.”
“Horses in Art,” Equine Vision Magazine, Spring 2005
“Heart of the Horse is a must-have for the library of every horse lover.”
Show Circuit Magazine, Summer 2005
Click here to view the article
“Heart of the Horse is Juliet van Otteren’s tribute to these gorgeous beings. Her intimate portraits of horses are a sculptural delight – both sinewy and powerful, earthbound and ethereal.”
Black & White Magazine, April 2005
“…a poetic photo hymn, Heart of the Horse.”
San Diego Union Tribune, November 28 2004
“Nothing is posed or staged. Some of the images are heart-warming, some incredibly delicate, some troubling. All are striking.”
Rhonda Hart Poe, Editor & Co-publisher, The Gaited Horse Magazine, December 2004.
“Photographer Juliet van Otteren catches on film the full scope of equine emotions, showing us, through her art, facets of the horse we might not otherwise appreciate.”
Photo-Life Magazine, January 2005
“Van Otteren’s riveting series of horse photos… suggest implicit trust between artist and subject…revealing their personalities and emotional subtleties.”
The Press Democrat, CA, December 12, 2003.
“If you’re not already in love with horses, you will be after immersing yourself in the black-and-white images of Juliet Van Otteren in Heart of the Horse”
Express-News, San Antonio, Texas, November 28, 2004
“This beautiful book would do anyone’s coffee table proud-horse person or not. The words and images in The Heart of the Horse, encourage us to be active observers on many levels-textural, spiritual, and with the heart. They invite us to feel what stirs inside of us when we allow ourselves to examine.”
Chronogram Magazine, New York, December 2004