In A Box Marked ‘Private’ (w/ Rebekah Teague) – Episode 67 | All Through a Lens: A Podcast About Film Photography

On this episode, we scored an interview with Rebekah Teague, one of the Minnesota photographers we’re all so in love with. We also want to talk to you about Marie Hoeg, a Norwegian photographer from the late 1800s whose photos were discovered in a barn within a box marked “private.”

We’ll also give a listen to two of the many songs titled Picture on the Wall. And there’s the answering machine and zine reviews, it’s a packed show!

Rebekah Teague

In Minneapolis, Minnesota there is a tight unofficial collective of film shooters. We’ve talked with both Kate Miller-Wilson and Taylor in previous episodes, and today we’re rounding it out with an interview with Rebekah Teague aka Rebekah.film on Instagram.

Rebekah is usually a woman of few words, letting her photos speak for themselves. Except today.

We talked to Rebekah about three of her photos (well, sort of four), here they are…

The Unknowable Private Life of Marie Hoeg

How do you tell a story of a photographer who left no writings – no journals, no diaries, no letters.

There is nearly no story to tell. And yet, the story that we have of Marie Hoeg is one that we’ve heard more than a few times – the story of a forgotten photographer, not suddenly recalled, but discovered through their found photos.

The story of Marie Hoeg isn’t so simple. Her photographs aren’t the landscapes of Evelyn Cameron or the portraits of Lora Webb Nichols, despite the fact that she was contemporary to both.

But let’s start in the 1980s – nearly a century after she picked up a camera. Our story, or what can be nearly called a story, starts in an old barn in Norway on a farm that was once owned by Marie Hoeg and Bolette Berg, two women from the town of Horten. They were business partners and likely more, though that is the first of many speculations.

In this barn was found a box containing over 400 glass plates from the photography studio they owned together from 1895 to 1903. Within this box was another box, closed and sealed and marked “private.”

We discussed eleven of her photos:

Portrett – byste – av Marie Høeg i selskinnspels med hette.

Uten tittel

Uten tittel

Uten tittel

Uten tittel

Ukjent mann utkledd i dameklær, med paraply.

Uten tittel

Uten tittel

You can find Marie’s other photos here:

https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/catalog?page=1&per_page=50&q=marie+hoeg&search_field=all_fields

Picture on the Wall(s)

Some of us turn to music for inspiration for our photography. But many musicians have turned to photography for inspiration for their music. We’ve talked about Guy Clark and Depeche Mode in the past, and on this episode we’ll tell you about one of our favorites,
“Picture on the Wall” by The Carter Family from 1929.

But that’s on all. We’ve found another one we’d like to share: “Picture on the Wall” by Freddie McKay.