Ruth Orkin's legendary photo series "An American Woman in Florence"

Photographer Ruth Orkin became famous thanks to the picture "An American Woman in Italy", taken by her in 1951. On it, she captured 23-year-old Ninali Craig (then known as Jinx Allen). Orkin noticed how the men were looking at Allen walking down the street, and photographed this moment. The photographer asked Allen to walk down the street again to take another photo just in case.

Ruth Orkin (1921-1985) was an American photographer and filmmaker. She grew up in Hollywood, where her mother was a silent film actress. In 1939, Orkin studied photojournalism at Los Angeles City College. During World War II, she served in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps before moving to New York in 1943. Orkin moved to New York in 1943 and began working as a photographer in nightclubs. She later became a successful freelance photographer, traveling around the world and selling her photographs to publications such as Life, Look and Ladies’ Home Journal.

In the 1970s, Orkin taught photography at the School of Visual Arts and at The International Center of Photography. She died of cancer in her Manhattan apartment at the age of 63.

On the Internet, you can often find such a story of how the famous photo of Ruth Orkin was taken:

In fact, there was nothing offensive to the "unfortunate traveler" in this story.

Photographer and journalist, Ruth Orkin in 1951 went on a mission from Life magazine to Israel, from where she then went to Italy. In Florence, Ruth met Ninali Craig, an art student from the United States traveling in Europe

23-year-old American Ninali Craig bought a ticket on a steamer following from New York to Europe. For six months she traveled alone, which at that time was a completely reckless occupation, in France and Spain, and then headed to Italy. She had little money, and she traveled third class, and in In Florence, she was lucky enough to rent a hotel room for just $1 a day.

In one of the conversations, the girls had an idea: to walk around the city and take some photos that could tell about what it's like for a lonely young girl to travel around Europe. By the way, Ruth came up with a pseudonym for her model — Jinx Allen. Ruth hoped to sell these photos to the Herald Tribune to promote tourism in Italy among American women. And the girls went for a walk along the thousand-year-old pavements in the narrow streets of the medieval city.

During one of these walks, the girls got lost. Ninali turned to passers-by for help. There were almost no tourists in post-war Europe, and the inhabitants of those places noticeably perked up when they recognized her as a foreigner. Noticing the unusual excitement of the male community at the sight of a stranger, Ruth, whose camera was always ready, instantly clicked the shutter of her camera. And then I asked my friend to walk down the street again, just in case to take another photo.

Despite the fact that the photo is often perceived as a symbol of sexism, there was no real threat to Ninali. Many years later, in her interview with Today magazine, she said that all the men depicted in the photo behaved extremely politely that day, and there was no harassment on their part. To the question "Is this photo staged?" Ninali replied:

In her memoirs , Ninali wrote:

By the way, Ninali later married an Italian and settled in Milan. Italy has captured her heart in every sense. Look at the other photos of this legendary photo shoot, they are truly beautiful and they call you to go on a trip right now!