Photojournalism and the birth of street photography intro

Photojournalism and the birth of street photography intro • http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=yy. RSnk. OR 6 z. E

Photojournalism

Henri Cartier-Bresson • (August 22, 1908 – August 3, 2004) was a French photographer considered to be the father of modern photojournalism. He was an early adopter of 35 mm format, and the master of candid photography. He helped develop the street photography or life reportage style that was coined The Decisive Moment that has influenced generations of photographers who followed.

The Decisive Moment • In 1952, Cartier-Bresson published his book Images à la sauvette, whose English edition was titled The Decisive Moment. It included a portfolio of 126 of his photos from the East and the West. The book's cover was drawn by Henri Matisse. For his 4, 500 -word philosophical preface, Cartier-Bresson took his keynote text from the 17 th century Cardinal de Retz:

• Cartier-Bresson applied this to his photographic style. • "There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment". • "To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression. "

• "Photography is not like painting, " Cartier-Bresson told the Washington Post in 1957. "There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative, " he said. "Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever. "

Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Decisive Moment • http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=hyh. Mq. Dfm G 9 o

“Sharpness is a bourgeois concept” – Henri Cartier Bresson

Interview with Photographer Jim Richardson • an interview with a national geographer who gave a piece of advice: “Take useful photos, not good photos. ”

Following the stock market crash of 1929, the Great Depression became the term used to describe the worldwide economic crisis of the 1930's • Rioting Across America - The Great Depression • http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=exu. Gv 3 Hs. V-U

NEW DEAL • In the early 1930's, president Hoover attempted to fight this economic depression by establishing programs such as the Federal Reserve System and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC). By 1932, little progress was made by Hoover's desperate attempts to "cure", in a sense, the American economy. Franklin D. Roosevelt overwhelmingly won the presidential election of 1932, beating Herbert C. Hoover, by voicing demands to repeal the 18 th Amendment, and at the same time promising a "New Deal" for the American population aimed at aiding depression relief efforts

New Deal + Photography • For those struggling throughout the Great Depression, the New Deal promised not just employment, food and shelter, but hope for the American dream. • From 1939 - 1943 a slew of workers participated in massive public projects from building roads to making art across the country, and a collection of photographs depicting this period of recovery

New Deal - 1930's Government Promotional Video (1 of 4) A promotional video produced by the US government to highlight the projects and programs of the Roosevelt's New Deal during the Great Depression • http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=w. F 80 co_Y_ Bc

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Farm Security Administration (FSA) were among the many programs established by the New Deal agenda. • The WPA and the FSA, unique to any other government funded project, employed artists to either construct public works, i. e. murals, architecture, or document the devastation caused by widespread economic depression. • The FSA in particular became a milestone in the charts of photographic history. • At no other point in American history has there been a government organization publicly funding a visual documentation of American life. • A man by the name of Roy Stryker was appointed to lead this pioneering project, funded by the FSA, of sending artists out into the towns, cities, and countryside of the United States.

FSA (Farm Security Administration) • The FSA stressed "rural rehabilitation" efforts to improve the lifestyle of sharecroppers, tenants, very poor landowning farmers, and a program to purchase submarginal land owned by poor farmers and resettle them in group farms on land more suitable for efficient farming. Critics, including the Farm Bureau, strongly opposed the FSA as an experiment in collectivizing agriculture — that is, in bringing farmers together to work on large government-owned farms using modern techniques under the supervision of experts. • The FSA is famous for its small but highly influential photography program, 1935– 44, that portrayed the challenges of rural poverty.

Roy E. Stryker, formerly an economics instructor at Columbia University Roy E. Stryker headed the Historical Division of the Farm Security Administration from 1935 to 1943. He was lowlevel federal bureaucrat with integrity and vision, managed a massive New Deal project to document the Great Depression.

Eleven photographers would come to work on this project (listed in order in which they were hired) • Arthur Rothestein, • Theo Jung, • Ben Shahn, • Walker Evans, • Dorothea Lange, • Carl Mydans, • Russell Lee, • Marion Post Wolcott, • Jack Delano, • John Vachon, • and John Collier

• Staff photographers were given specific subjects and/or geographic areas to cover. • These field assignments often lasted several months. Before beginning their assignments, photographers read relevant reports, local newspapers, and books in order to become familiar with their subject. • A basic shooting script or outline was often prepared. Photographers were encouraged to record anything that might shed additional light on the topic that they were photographing, and they received training in making personal contacts and interviewing people.

• FSA photography project is most responsible for creating the image of the Depression in the US. • Many of the images appeared in popular magazines. The photographers were under instruction from Washington as to what overall impression the New Deal wanted to portray. • Stryker's agenda focused on his faith in social engineering, the poor conditions among tenant cotton farmers, and the very poor conditions among migrant farm workers; above all he was committed to social reform through New Deal intervention in people's lives. • Stryker demanded photographs that "related people to the land vice versa" because these photographs reinforced the RA's position that poverty could be controlled by "changing land practices. ” • Though Stryker did not dictate to his photographers how they should compose the shots, he did send them lists of desirable themes, for example, "church, " "court day, " "barns. ” • Stryker sought photographs of migratory workers that would tell a story about how they lived day-to-day. He asked Dorothea Lange to emphasize cooking, sleeping, praying and socializing.

• Most of the time the photographers mailed their exposed negatives to the photographic unit's lab in Washington for developing, numbering and printing. • In the initial years of the project Stryker was almost exclusively responsible for reviewing contact prints made from the negatives and selecting images that he considered suitable for printing. • Over time, however, photographers played a greater role in picture selection. • Rejected images were classified as "killed. ” After Stryker reviewed and selected images, the negatives and contact prints (or "first prints") were returned to the photographers for captioning. The resulting captions were edited at the photographic unit's headquarters. The selected images were then printed and mounted, the captions were applied to the photo mounts, and the photographs were filed in the photographic unit's file.

Dorothea Lange

Destitute pea pickers in California. . . (Often referred to as "Migrant Mother"). 1936. Photographer: Dorothea Lange

Walker Evans

Houses, Atlanta, Georgia. 1936. Photographer: Walker Evans

Russell Lee

Mexican beet workers, near Fisher, Minnesota, 1937

Carl Mydans

Carl Mydans: Scenes at the auto trailer camp, Dennis Port, Massachusetts. August, 1936.

Jack Delano

Chicago, Ill. Jan 1943. In the waiting room of the Union station. Photograph by Jack Delano on assignment for the Farm Security Administration.

Gordon Parks

Gordon Parks “American Gothic. Portrait of government cleaning woman Ella Watson. ”

Arthur Rothstein

Farmer and sons. . . dust storm, Cimarron County, Oklahoma. 1936. Photographer: Arthur Rothstein

Marion Post Wolcott

Jitterbugging in Negro juke joint. . . Clarksdale, Mississippi. 1939. Photographer: Marion Post Wolcott

John Vachon

Members of the picket line at King Farm strike. Morrisville, Pennsylvania. August 1938. Photographer: John Vachon.

Theo Jung

April 1936. "Interior of rehabilitation client's house. Jackson, Ohio. " 35 mm

Ben Shahn

Ben Shahn: Wonder Bar, hot spot in Circleville, Ohio. 1938.

Where can you find these photographs in high resolution? • At the Library of Congress has a flicker for FSA: • http: //www. flickr. com/photos/library_of_congress/sets/ • Digital Collections: • http: //www. loc. gov/library/libarch-digital. html • http: //www. loc. gov/pictures/ • FSA COLLECTION: • http: //www. loc. gov/pictures/collection/fsa/ • http: //memory. loc. gov/ammem/fsahtml/fahome. html • Background and Scope: • http: //www. loc. gov/pictures/collection/fsa/background. html

One image we recognize • Example: Migrant Mother Photograph • http: //www. loc. gov/rr/print/list/128_migm. html

Searching under categories: • For example: Photographs of Signs Enforcing Racial Discrimination • http: //www. loc. gov/rr/print/list/085_disc. html • Geographic locations searches: • http: //memory. loc. gov/ammem/fsahtml/fsageoginde x 1. html

Films made as a part of FSA The River: http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=fpz 0 XI 6 U 97 U The Plow That Broke the Plains, ca. 1937 http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=f. QCwhj. WNc. H 8

But wait, what about color?

“Color Photographs from the New Deal, ” From strong young men working with the newest technologies to factory workers socializing at a communal lunch table, the Farm Security Administration strove to depict a positive and progressive America during a period of economic turmoil and low morale. Produced only three years after the invention of Kodachrome film, these photos offer an intensely saturated portrait of the domestic and industrial American landscape from 1939 to 1943.