In 1984, renowned German photographer Helga Paris (May 21, 1938 – February 5, 2024) embarked on an extraordinary project that would reveal the hidden dignity of East German working women. Spending several weeks at VEB Treff-Modelle, a state-owned clothing factory in East Berlin, Paris photographed female employees with a vision that transformed the ordinary into art. From the 1,500 photographs she captured, around 50 were selected for her celebrated book 'Helga Paris: Women at Work.'

Paris's inspiration came from an unexpected source – her observations of women in shopping centers. "Whenever I was at the shopping center, I looked at the people, watched them closely, imagined how they come home tired from work, before they do this and that," she explained. "And when the women then stood at the checkout in the usually long line and waited, it all fell away from them and they had a relaxed expression, calm and completely with themselves. Then I thought, I would like to photograph them like that. That was their true face."

Unable to photograph women in the shopping center setting, Paris realized that some of these women might work at the nearby VEB Treffmodelle Berlin clothing factory. Her approach to photography was deeply rooted in authenticity and human connection. "I have always been drawn to the everyday, the unspectacular," she noted. "But I didn't photograph it clinically, aseptically; rather, I tried to reproduce it as realistically and as hauntingly as possible. This means that when I photographed women in factories or people on the street, I had to create a certain level of trust in a very short amount of time, where they could meet my gaze with a certain degree of self confidence."

Paris's philosophy about beauty was revolutionary for its time. "Every face is an experience; in particular, the rather unremarkable, unattractive ones gain an unforeseen beauty," she observed. Her work served a crucial documentary purpose in East Germany, where official media only presented idealized images. "My subjects are people. The need to document everyday life in photographs developed out of necessity. In East Germany, only favorable photographs were shown in the papers and to the public – ideally of the happiest people possible. Real life was hardly ever documented."

Her artistic foundation was both personal and professional. Family photographs from the 1930s had a lasting impact on her visual sensibility. "In my family, ever since the 1930s, we took a lot of simple photographs: amateurish, small black-and-white photos with scalloped edges. I still have a number of shoeboxes filled with these old pictures from my youth and early childhood," she recalled. Combined with her formal education in fashion design, which gave her "a knowledge of aesthetics and composition," Paris was able to develop her self-taught photography skills rapidly.

Paris deliberately chose black-and-white photography for its emotional impact and clarity. "Black-and-white photographs allow more of a look into the details than color photographs, because the eye can tend to get lost in the contrasts," she explained. "Black-and-white photographs are more impressive; just by the fine nuances of black, white and especially grey. The composition seems clearer, so you abstract more of what you see, which makes the subject more memorable."

The photographer believed that women had particular advantages in photography due to their empathetic nature. "In photography, you need a certain empathy for the other person. Perhaps women have greater empathy here, can develop better and more freely," she suggested. She also noted that photography offered unique opportunities for women artists: "One must not forget that photography was not really established as an artistic medium at the time. In painting and sculpture, the men often tolerated no one next to them, there was trench warfare. In photography it was different, there was a gender independent collaboration."

Paris's access to the factory was facilitated by her previous experience and institutional support. "I had done an internship in the clothing factory during my studies, so I knew many work processes. The project was financed by the Society for Photography in the Cultural Association of the German Democratic Republic (GDR)," she explained. Her enthusiasm for the project was so great that she "spontaneously sewed on the assembly line" herself. Many women remembered her from her internship days, which helped create a comfortable atmosphere.

Her photographic technique emphasized spontaneity and naturalness. "I asked them to stand or sit somewhere, told them I didn't expect anything special; they should be as they saw fit. It just had to be quick so they didn't pose for the camera," Paris described. "Before they thought about how they looked, the shutter was already pressed. So the women were quite unagitated, very matter of fact. They stood according to their function at work, in combination with their respective female self-image."

Paris held strong views about the differences between East and West German women's experiences. "From the very beginning, a different self image prevailed in the field of photography. In the west, the new artistic fields such as photography and video were often utilized by women from a feminist perspective. This was different in the GDR. Here, equality prevailed," she argued. "Feminism sees men as enemies – it's an ideology. We women in the GDR had nothing against men; on the contrary, we had equal rights. We demanded equal rights when necessary, and we got them. Did that happen in the west? Probably not. That's embarrassing."

The photographer also discussed the relative freedom that photographers enjoyed in East Germany compared to other artists. "We photographers had more freedom than, for example, the painters and sculptors. At first, we were hardly noticed in the Association of Visual Artists in the GDR; we didn't even have our own section there at the time," she recalled. After becoming a member in 1975 and receiving a tax number that legally entitled her to work as a photographer, the situation gradually improved. "It was only on the initiative of Arno Fischer and Roger Melis that a working group for photography was set up in the association in the early 1980s. Then we were listened to more."

Helga Paris was born in 1938 in what is now the Polish town of Goleniów and grew up in Zossen near Berlin. After studying fashion design and working as a graphic designer, she taught herself photography in the 1960s. In 1966, she moved to Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood with her then-husband, painter Ronald Paris, where they raised their two children. The working-class character of Prenzlauer Berg at the time strongly influenced her moody, sometimes melancholy photographic works. Paris became a member of Berlin's Akademie der Künste arts academy in 1996 and left an remarkable legacy to the institution: an archive of almost 230,000 negatives and around 6,300 films, preserving her unique vision of East German life for future generations.