Jill Freedman

On October 9, 2019, Freedman died from complications of cancer at a care facility in Manhattan.

During the earlier part of her career, Freedman was captivated by the photographic printing process. She shot Kodak Tri-X and liked to use a 35 mm lens and available light, and to print on Agfa Portriga Rapid paper. As of late 2016, she neither had a darkroom nor missed it. She emphasized that the camera, whether film or digital, is merely a tool. When asked on another occasion, she approvingly cited Elliott Erwitt on not being boring and attempting to do excellent work; technical questions and even posterity should not be a concern.

In 2016, Freedman's work and career, especially her images of New York City, was the subject of renewed interest, appearing in multiple Vice articles, including their 2016 photography issue and at Art Basel Miami.

Freedman was one of 13 photographers shown photographing New York in Everybody Street, a 2013 film by Cheryl Dunn. Together with Richard Kalvar, Alex Webb, Rebecca Norris Webb, Maggie Steber and Matt Stuart, she was a featured guest in the Miami Street Photography Festival 2016 at HistoryMiami Museum during Art Basel week.

Around 2003, Freedman moved back to New York. She was shocked and saddened by its sanitization during her absence: "When I saw that they had turned 42nd Street into Disneyland, . . . I just stood there and wept." She moved to a place near Morningside Park in 2007, and was still living there in 2015.

In 1988, Freedman discovered that she was ill. The medical expenses meant that she had to leave her apartment above the Sullivan Street Playhouse; in 1991, she moved to Miami Beach; she was dissatisfied there but was able to read a lot. She sometimes worked for the Miami Herald. She also managed to publish a photobook of dogs that was praised for "[defying] the clichéd images" of dog photography. She also published the second of two photobooks of Ireland, one that Publishers Weekly said "lovingly captures the enduring aspects of Irish tradition".

During the seventies, Freedman was briefly associated with Magnum Photos, but did not become a member. She wanted to tell stories via photography, but also wanted to avoid the schmoozing required to get commissions; and she therefore set her own tasks. She had difficulty making a living, but sold prints from a stand set up outside the Whitney Museum building. In 1983, New York Times critic Andy Grunberg recognized her black and white street photography in New York, grouping Freedman with Lee Friedlander, Fred R. Conrad, Bruce Davidson, Roy DeCarava, Bill Cunningham, Sara Krulwich and Rudy Burckhardt.

Grundberg wrote in 1982 that "Indignation over injustice is the major key in [Freedman's] work, admiration for life's survivors the minor key." Maggie Steber has said of Freedman:

Some of the firefighters had previously been policemen, and they suggested that Freedman might photograph police work. Freedman had disliked the police but reasoned that there must be good policemen among them. For her series Street Cops (1978–1981), she accompanied the police to an area of New York City including Alphabet City and Times Square, spending time with those who seemed good cops. The work resulted in the book Street Cops. A contemporary reviewer for Popular Photography started by observing that "the passionate photojournalistic essay of yesterday" was "an endangered species", before saying that it lived on in photobooks such as this one. The reviewer described Street Cops as "[celebrating] the heroism, compassion, and humor of New York police professionals", and saying that the book "is traditional and satisfying in that it accomplishes a blend rarely successful – or even attempted – these days: an organic fusion of words and photographs".

The work was published as a book, Circus Days, in 1975.

In 1975, Freedman started to photograph firefighters around Harlem and the Bronx. This took her two years; she lived with the firefighters, sleeping in the chief's car and on the floor. This resulted in a book, Firehouse, published in 1977—according to one review a book "flawed . . . by poor reproduction and inept layout".

On hearing of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Freedman quit her job and went to Washington, DC. She lived in Resurrection City, a shantytown put up by the Poor People's Campaign on Washington Mall in 1968, and photographed there. Photographs from the series were published at the time in Life, and collected in Freedman's first book, Old News: Resurrection City, in 1970. A. D. Coleman wrote of the book:

Freedman arrived in New York City in 1964, and worked in advertising and as a copywriter. As a photographer, she was self-taught, influenced by André Kertész, idolizing W. Eugene Smith, but primarily helped by her poodle Fang:

Freedman was Jewish and born in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh to a traveling salesman and a nurse. As an adult Freedman photographed extensively in Ireland, quipping "I’m Jewish, but I adopted Ireland as my own old country". In 1961, Freedman graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a major in sociology. In 1964 Freedman came to New York City and had several temporary jobs including advertising copywriter. She only discovered photography while experimenting with a friend's camera.

Freedman photographed the then sleazy area of 42nd Street and the arts scene in Studio 54 and SoHo.

Jill Freedman (October 19, 1939 – October 9, 2019) was an American documentary photographer and street photographer. She was based in New York City.