Walker Evans Farm Security Administration Photographs: Book One
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,Photography & Video
Walker Evans Farm Security Administration Photographs: Book One Details
A refreshing look at Walker Evans' photography during his years at the Resettlement Administration/Farm Security Administration (1935-1938). Over one hundred photographs from the Library of Congress archives, including famous and little known shots, show Evans' skill as well as his workflow and shot selection process. Background information is provided for several photographs, including locations, detailed descriptions of subjects and social context. Organized into chapters based on subject matter, this 92 page book features sections on places, signs and people.This is the first volume in a series highlighting the work of government photographers in the 30s and 40s. Photographers profiled include Dorothea Lange, Marion Post Wollcott, Edwin Locke, Theodor Jung, Ben Shahn, Sheldon Dick, Russell Lee, Marjory Collins, Gordon Parks, Jack Delano, John Vachon and others.
Reviews
This book (and book two) take a fresh approach to his photos by showing them in the context of the times, very much like the original intention of the FSA to reveal rural poverty to the rest of America via newspapers and magazines. The book's 140 photos by Evans reveal how he chose his subjects and the author has researched some interesting background material about the locations (there are several period maps to give an indication of where Evans was standing) and what the photos reveal about the Depression years and how people lived in those hard times.The contents in this first book has a short chapter on the cameras Evans used then chapters on Places, Signs and People. Signs has plenty of photos showing posters, shop fronts, hand-written store signs and lettering seen in the environment that made a staple shot for all the FSA photographers. Places is a visual round-up of the States Evans visited for FSA assignments and People captures many faces and individuals including street scenes, a prison crew working in the countryside and eight pages covering the Mississippi floods of 1937.I think it's worth saying that book one and two are not conventional photobooks of Evans work with one photo a page printed on art paper, here the author has produced something different by using these remarkable documentary pictures and historical research to present a fresh view of the Depression years.
