Photographer reflects on capturing Charm City in the '70s: "I fell in love with Baltimore"

An exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art is highlighting two centuries of Baltimore photography.

Paula Gillen is a graduate of MICA and now has five photographs in the group show "Flashback."

The curators picked her work from the 1970s, when she was a student at the art college. It was a time before cellphones and internet, when she hung out with her friends frequently.

"A lot of people take pictures of beautiful things, and therefore it's beautiful," said Gillen. "I'm more interested in the psychology of the photograph, how it makes the viewer feel, what it brings up maybe in their own life."

Works of art

Gillen showed CBS News Baltimore her works of art that are hanging in her home.

She says a lot of her photography was spontaneous. It wasn't hard to find backdrops in Baltimore.

In her photograph titled "Bad Girls," she found herself with friends playing in a backyard on Abell Avenue.

"I said 'Hey, why don't you pin your hair up on the clothesline.' And then I told them to put their arms around their backs," said Gillen. "My sister and I were always getting into trouble, so it's sort of a family memory of kind of getting into trouble and being disciplined."

Another one of her photographs that you can now see at the exhibit is titled "Hostage Situation."

She was going through a friend's closet, looking for her props, when her leg went through the floor.

"I was like 'Oh my god, I could come back the next day and photograph it,'" ignoring the bruise she received.

She says an accident turned into a silly and surrealist photograph.

"I was trying to also give the relationship between the mother and child, how the mother is always tied to the child," she explained. 

Inspiration

She says her father was an early influence, and she feels lucky to have been able to use his Hasselbald camera. She was even a model for him sometimes.

"A lot of it is connecting with the person you're photographing," said Gillen. 

Popular surreal TV shows, like the Adams Family and Bewitched, also had an influence on her work.

So did her friends, whom she spent a lot of time with, roaming on different streets and finding themselves in front of murals and dive bars.

"I was very inspired in Baltimore. My friends were very creative. They were always wearing costumes or doing something," she said. 

She also appreciated the city's deep history.

"I like anything vintage and old, so I kind of fell in love with Baltimore. I just like the funkiness of it. And I love the fact that you can walk down the street and kind of stumble upon different things," said Gillen. 

"It's how we breathe and grow"

She says it's nice to be recognized now and she's glad that people resonate with her images. While it doesn't always translate into financial success, that was never a factor into her motivation to keep creating art.

"Artists, to be honest with you, are not that geared towards success," she said. "We do it because it's how we live, it's how we breathe and grow."

Her recommendation for young photographers is to ditch the phone and try a handheld camera for a more organic way to see. She suggests a 35mm.

"It's a different thing than looking at the back of a screen, because you're looking though a viewfinder and composing that way," Gillen said. 

WJZ is a proud sponsor of the "Flashback" photo show at the Baltimore Museum of Art, where you can see Gillen's work.