http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=walker+evans+images&oe=UTF-8&gfe_rd=cr&hl=en&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ei=yRnmVOXNEsvkaq3ogNAP&ved=0CBQQsAQ&tbm=isch
Again for the video was unable to find the link given. so there are two examples below.
Vidoe Link for Walker Evans FSA work is here ....
WALKER EVANS
1935 - 1938 was the height of the depression and the government sent a group of 17 photographers to record the lives of the poor farm workers of the South.
Their photographs were to illustrate the problems. Evans said to start with he didn't give it too much thought - he just went and did the job taking pictures he wanted and liked. He didn't realise what a famous record it was to become.
He and Agee visited the deep South and they were not welcome by the landowner or the police who didn't trust them or know what their purpose was, and didn't really want them there at all.
Evans says his photos were not a social protest, but it wasn't supposed to be. He liked his pictures to tell a story and he did show what was happening, but he wasn't planning to change the world.
In 1941 Agee and Evans produced a book called ... Let us now praise famous men ... it wasn't a success until after the war, when it became famous.
Evans spent the next 50 years recording the American way of life - he says - Photography is actually extremely difficult, realistic is great and rare and sometimes accidental..
Shoot to Kill ...
Get the picture .............THATS A BULLSEYE !!!!!!
and another here ...
DOROTHEA LANGE
Watch the you tube video ... ( again unable to select video but have chosen this one as an alternative )
which can be seen here ...
Also ... Read piece on page 39-49 of course reader.
I purchased this book .....
DOROTHEA LANGE
Was a 40 year old professional photographer from San
Francisco. On a drive home she was
alerted to a ‘pea pickers camp’ sign .. she knew what this meant.
Although the US economy was beginning to recover she knew
that tens of millions of people were out of work. Many turned to vegetable and fruit picking
just to make some money.
Lange did drive past the sign but after a while thinking
about it took a uturn. She turned at the sign following instinct not reason.
By the time she had reached the tents the rain had eased and
almost immediately she began to photograph people. The first a woman and her 4
children beneath a crude tent open to one side.
“I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if
drawn by a magnet.. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera
but I do remember she asked me no questions” … I took 6 photos.
She found out the mother was 32 years old .. they were
living off frozen vegetables from the
fields and small birds that the children killed ..
Lange knew at this point her images were good but didn’t
know how good.. she didn’t take any more of the tents. One of these pictures
would become iconic. Perfectly capturing the spirit of the Great Depression.
These pictures showed the plight of the mother and her two
children – but they also stood for something bigger.. They captured the
predicament that hundreds of thousands of migrant workers found themselves in.
Lange to her dying day did not know the name of this lady
also referred to as the Migrant Mother. (
Although it was found out to be Florence Owens Thompson ).
The great depression was caused by the collapse of the stock
market in October 1929. Job losses were
crippling and 1 in 4 Americans were out of work. Many losing their life savings which made
matters worse.
Millions of Americans became homeless and entire families had
to live in back alleys and in cars or tents in fields.
Residents of migrant camps also didn’t have any money for
food, many suffered starvation. Many of the poor lined up to receive bread from
charities. Farm workers were in dire straits all over the country.
The worst off residents were in the so called dust bowl,
covering large parts of Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, Mexico which suffered serious
drought making the soil infertile and causing dust storms. Up until 1939 the
farmers deserted their homesteads and headed for California.
In 1936 the Thompson family had finished picking beets in
southern California and they were heading to central California for more work
when their car broke down near the peapickers camp. Whilst trying to repair it they damaged the
radiator so then became stuck here at the camp.
This tent was a temporary set up to protect the family
whilst repairing the car. Lange arrived
and took her six photos.
Thompson remained an agricultural migrant – she married a hospital
administrator in 1945 who could afford to look after her and her ten children
and she had a more comfortable life.
Decades passed when only she and her family knew who she was
– the migrant mother – she died In September 1983 and she is buried in Hughson,
California and on her headstone says ..
Migrant Mother – a legend
of the strength of American Motherhood
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