ch. 9: documentary expression and popular photography
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Documentary Expression & Popular Photography
The Great Depression in the United States• Longest and worst economic collapse in the history of the
modern industrial world.• Lasted from the end of 1929 until early 40s.• There was a decline in the production and sale of goods, and a
severe rise in unemployment.• Businesses - banks - closed. People lost jobs, homes, savings.• Many people depended on charity to survive.• Many Americans spent more than they earned, farmers had to
deal with heavy debt and lower prices for their goods.• The effects of World War 1 (1914-1918) caused economic
problems in many countries. Europe was struggling to pay war debts.
• These problems-and the resulting weak economy-contributed to the major crisis that started the Great Depression - the U.S. stock market crash of 1929, which financially ruined thousands of investors.
Dorothea Lange, Line Up at Social Security, 1930s
In 1935, the US government turned to various agencies for help in fighting the Depression. In 1937, the Resettlement
Aministration became part of the Dept. of Agriculture under the title of Farm Security Administration (FSA).
Right: Chief of Historical Section of FSA, Roy Stryker
The goal was to show America a desperate situation and togain support for President Roosevelt’s new programs:grants, loans and resettlement money to displaced farmers.
“Was it journalism? Yes and No. Was it history? Of course.Was it education? Very much so. If I had to sum it up, I’dsay…we (the FSA photographic corps) succeeded in doing exactlywhat…we should do: we introduced Americans to America.”-- Roy Stryker
Lange, Migrant Farm Worker, 1939
Arthur Rothstein, Dust Storm, Cimarron County, OK, 1936
Rothstein, Steer Skull, 1936
Rothstein, Field Workers, 1936
Walker Evans, Houses and Billboards, Alanta, Georgia, 1936
Walker Evans, Roadside Store, LA, 1936
Evans, Bud Fields and Family, 1936
Evans, Tenant Farmer Bed, 1936
Evans, American Photographs, 1938
Evans, Roadside Restaurant, 1936
Evans, Sign, Torn Movie Poster, 1936
Evans, Negro Barber Shop, Atlanta, 1936 1936
Evans, 1936
Evans was concerned that his photographs not beconsidered ‘propaganda’ or ‘political.’ When he accepted the FSA assignment, he wrote a note to himself which read “..Never make photographic statements for the government. This is pure record, not propaganda.”
“I do have a critical mind, but I am not a social protestartist, although I have been taken as one very widely. You’re not, and shouldn’t be, I think, trying to change the world, saying ‘Open up your heart and b;leed for these people.’ I would never dream of saying anything like that. I believe in staying out of the way.” -- Evans speaking to an audience of Harvard students.
Dorothea Lange, 1934
Lange, Migrant Mother, 1936
Lange, Migrant Mother alternate view, 1936
Lange, Migrant Mother alternate view, 1936
Dorothea Lange, Ex-Slave, Alabama, 1937
Lange, Cotton Picker, Near Eutaw, Alabama 1937
Lange, One Nation Indivisible, 1942
Lange, Pacific Railroad,1937
Lange, 1937
Dorothea Lange at work, 1940s
Ben Shahn, Cotton Pickers, Pulaski County, Arkansas, 1935
Shahn, Unemployed Miner, Arkansas, 1935
Russell Lee, Child of Migrant Worker in Car, 1939
Gordon Parks, Ella Watson, American Gothic, 1942
Grant Wood, American Gothic, 1930
Parks, Newsboy, Harlem, 1930s
Parks, Fashion for LIFE, 1949
Parks, Muhammad Ali, 1970
Parks’ photo essays highlighting African Americanissues and leaders from a cross-section of the community, such as Martin Luther King, Eldridge Cleaverand Muhammad Ali, reached a broad audience(via LIFE magazine).
Parks, Shaft, 1971
Parks, Shaft, 1971 (introduced into the Library of Congress in 2000) , Shaft 2000
As WW2 approached, there was a trend of optimism - people wanted to put troubling news aside. This attitude would take hold in the late 1930s - early 1940s. The images done by the FSA were opposite of this optimistic view.
“Teach the underprivileged to have fewer children and lessmisery,” “Touched me to the point were I would like to quiteverything in order to help these stricken people,” “A falseimpression is given of American farm conditions. Typical ofthe New Deal bunk at taxpayer’s expense.” “Everycomfortable person who objects to the present Administration’sefforts to help the poor should be made to look at these splendidpictures until they see daylight.” -- written responses to a NewYork exhibition of FSA photographs in 1938.
George Hurrell, Jean Harlow, 1935
Anatol Josepho, Photo Booth, 1930s
Capra, It’s a Wonderful Life, 1946 - WW2 ended in 1945
Margaret Bourke-White, first cover of LIFE magazine, 1936
“To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events, to watch the face of the poor and the
gestures of the proud; to see strange things; to see and take pleasure in seeing; to see and be
amazed; to see and be instructed.”
Margaret Bourke-White, first cover of LIFE magazine, 1936
“To see life; the see the world; to eyewitness great events; to
watch the face of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to
see strange things; to see and take pleasure in seeing; to
see and be amazed; to see and be instructed.”
- LIFE magazine, November 1936
Margaret Bourke-White,from Life photo essay, 1936
Margaret Bourke-White, Life photo essay, 1936
Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971)
Bourke-White, Concentration Camp Survivors, 1945
Bourke-White, After the Louisville Flood, 1930s
August Sander, Master Upholsterer, Berlin, 1929
“Simple, natural portraits that show the subject in an environment corresponding to their own individuality.”
Sander, Varnisher, 1930
Sander, Bricklayer, 1928
Sander, Pastry Cook, 1928
Sander, Boxers, Cologne 1929
• In 1929, the first of a proposed series of 20 volumes of Sander’s photographs was published under the title “Face of Our Time.”
• The Nazis banned the book in 1934, destroyed the printing press, confiscated the books and negatives.
• They believed the photographs revealed a diversity of physical characteristics that were contrary to Nazi teachings about class and race. Sander, Boxers, Cologne 1929
Berndt & Hilla Becher, Water Towers
Andreas Gursky, 99 Cents Market
Bill Brandt, Parlormaids Ready to Serve Dinner, Parlormaid Preparing a Bath Before Dinner, 1932-35
Brandt, Worker Family at Table, County Durham, 1932-35
Brandt, 1932-35
“The extreme social contrast, during those years before the war,was visually, very inspiring for me.”
Brandt, Snicket in Halifax, 1937
Brandt, Policeman in a Dockland Alley, Bermondsey, 1938
James Van Der Zee, Couple in Raccoon Coats, 1932
Harold Edgerton, Drop of Milk, 1930
Portrait of Robert Capa (Andre Friedmann 1913-1954)
Capa, Death of a Loyalist soldier, 1936
Joe Rosenthal, Marines Raising Flag on Iwo Jima, 1945
Capa, Street Fighting 1936, Amist Rubble After Air Raid, 1937
Capa: “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.”
Capa, D-Day, Normandy, June 6, 1944
William Eugene Smith, U.S. Marines With Wounded, Dying Infant, 1944
Smith,cover of LIFE magazine,1945
World War II- a few facts
• Global war - lasted from 1939-1945 (some conflicts in Asia started earlier).
• Involved the vast majority of the world’s nations.• The most widespread war in history - involved more than 100 million
people from more than 30 countries.• “Total war” - all economic, industrial and scientific capabilities were
utilized for the “war effort.”• Massive deaths of civilians: including the Holocaust, massive use of
airpower to bomb enemy cities, and first use of nuclear weapons (Hiroshima, Nagasaki).
• Reulted in 50-85 million fatalities. • Deadliest conflict in human history• W. Eugene Smith, Battle of Saipan Island, U,.S. Marines in combat with
Japanese.
Roman Vishniac, Boy With Earlocks, 1937
John Heartfield, Through Light to Night, 1933
Henri Cartier Bresson, Gestapo Informant, Dessau,Germany 1945
Edward Steichen, Herbert Bayer, Road to Victory exhibition, MoMA New York, 1942
Edward Steichen, Herbert Bayer, Road to Victory exhibition, MoMA New York, 1942
Lee Miller, Buchenwald, April 1945
Lee Miller, “I implore you to believe this is true.”
Chapter 9: Retake
• With the Great Depression came an age of documentary practice in American film and photography.
• Central to photojournalism: images of the poor and efforts to help them.
• The FSA’s straightfoward style became popular in newspapers and magazines as did the photo essay (several images dedicated to a single theme).
• Photography’s capability for entertainment (photo booths, celebrity images) grew.
• During WWII, newspapers and picture magazines (LIFE) were ready to report, protest and propagandize.
• The eye witness documentary style became strongly associated with the Great Depression and the war years.
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