Photographing the doorways of life

DALIA SABLE

FOR photographer Judi Schiff, doors have a great deal of symbolism. From offering a gateway to new and great opportunities, to hiding secrets and even presenting the implications of life and death, Schiff believes doors represent both the opening and closing of borders and chapters.

It is this fascination that has taken the German-born artist around the world to photograph doors.

Perhaps her subconscious affinity to doors originates with the story of her survival, when an SS guard walked through the doorway of the train compartment on one of the last trains out of Berlin just weeks before the fateful Kristallnacht in 1938.

The guard ordered all the Jews on the train to disembark, but looking at the then one-year-old Schiff, asleep cradled in her mother’s arms, the guard told her parents to remain on the train so as not to disturb the sleeping baby.

“I have always been a good sleeper since,” Schiff jokes, explaining that she spent the ensuing months on various boats, before arriving in Australia at the age of two.

While photography became an important part of her life in later years, doors only became her focus while on an overseas trip.

“I was on holidays in Spain in 1990 and my husband had meetings. So I was exploring Madrid and Toledo and taking photos,” Schiff explains. “When I returned I realised I had taken lots of photos of doors.”

Schiff subsequently created a collage of these images, and after having the pieces professionally framed, entered it into a Rotary art show in her local Camberwell in Melbourne.

“Someone bought it and I’ve never stopped,” she says, implying it was a kind of ticket through an exciting, new doorway to the realm of more professional photography.

Schiff’s images of doors — from the rough old wooden to the corrugated iron and “spectacular silver” — have been the gateway to England, Germany, Norway, Holland, Scotland, the US, Israel and, most recently, Italy.

Each country is deliberately chronicled in detailed collages, which have been the product of solo and group exhibitions, including a current showing at Melbourne contemporary art space Lioli Gallery at 1395 Toorak Road, Camberwell.

“Photography is part of my life, something I love to do,” Schiff says. “It gives me a great deal of pleasure and I find it all very interesting, especially deciding which to include in the collages. It’s enjoyable and creative.”

More information at www.judischiffphotography.com.