Why do YOU take photos?

Transcription

1

2 Why do YOU take photos?

3 What point are YOU trying to get across?

4 How do you want people to perceive YOU based upon YOUR photos?

5

6

7

8 What do these photos have in common?

9 Aside from making people laugh, what are some other reasons people may manipulate, fake, or force photos?

10 "Making Sense of Documentary Photography" By James Curtis (from the Making Sense of Evidence series on History Matters: The U.S. Survey on the Web, located at

11 Alexander Gardner, Rebel Sharpshooter in Devil s Den, 1863

12 Alexander Gardner, Rebel Sharpshooter in Devil s Den, What catches your eye about this photograph? 2. Are there any elements of this photograph that seem too perfect? 3. Why might a photographer in this era take a picture of an injured or dead soldier as opposed to a moving soldier?

13 Alexander Gardner, Rebel Sharpshooter in Devil s Den, 1863 Long exposure times meant that Civil War photographers could not capture combatants in action. Therefore, they were forced to photograph soldiers who remained still (either injured or dead). In this case Gardner ordered that one of the fallen bodies be dragged forty yards and propped in a rocky corner. Even still the photo continues to command attention despite the recent discovery of the photographer s manipulations.

14 William Henry Jackson, Mt of the Holy Cross, 1873

15 William Henry Jackson, Mt of the Holy Cross, Why do you think this photograph was named as such? 2. What physical elements could have stood in the way of being such an iconic photograph? 3. Why technological issues (consider what you know about camera technology of the era) could have prevented the photograph from turning out as well as it did?

16 William Henry Jackson, Mt of the Holy Cross, 1873 This photograph was altered by Jackson out of necessity. He had to wait until the end of the spring runoff before he could take his bulky camera equipment to a spot across from the mountain. He discovered that one arm of the cross of snow had melted. He later restored that arm in his Denver darkroom. By this slight manipulation, he created one of America s most cherished icons of western expansion.

17 Jacob A. Riis, Bandit's Roost, 1888

18 Jacob A. Riis, Bandit's Roost, To whom do you suppose Riis was attempting to appeal in this photograph? 2. What aspects of the photograph s title can potentially be construed as racist or discriminatory? 3. What sort of feelings or reactions do you believe Riis was trying to inspire in this photograph? 4. What do you notice hanging in the background of the photo? 5. How does this lie in direct contrast to the overall feeling Riis attempted to inspire in this photograph? 6. Are there any other people within the photograph whose presence also lies in direct contrast to the photo s feeling?

19 Jacob A. Riis, Bandit's Roost, 1888 Riis photographs reflected the generally held prejudices felt by middle-class Americans toward foreigners. The title of the photograph, and the two men at the front are meant to inspire a feeling of menace and danger. The viewer is meant to believe that this is a gang of men. However, we also see women leaning out the window, and a young child in the background. Additionally, if they were truly part a gang why would they agree to be photographed when it was well known that Riis brought police with him when he went out to take pictures? How did he also get them to consent to be photographed? Certainly not by telling them he wanted a photo of notorious criminals. Finally, in the background we saw fresh laundry hanging from a line. This is ironic considering Riis fondness for saying: the true line to be drawn between pauperism and honest poverty is the clothesline. With it begins the effort to be clean that is the first and best evidence of a desire to be honest.

20 Jacob A. Riis A Growler Gang in Session (Robbing a Lush), 1887

21 Jacob A. Riis A Growler Gang in Session (Robbing a Lush), Why might Riis have used children in his photographs of NYC immigrants? 2. What does the word lush mean used as a noun? 3. What issue do you have with children being characterized as such? 4. What may have been Riis purpose in referring to a fighting child as a lush? 5. Zoom in on the faces of the children, is there anything suspicious? How does this impact the reliability and authenticity of the photograph? 6. Considering what you know about technological limitations of photography during this time period, what else about the photo s composition may call its reliability into question? 7. How do you predict Riis may have enticed or bribed NYC immigrant children to have their picture taken?

22 Jacob A. Riis A Growler Gang in Session (Robbing a Lush), 1887 Jacob Riis employed children as symbols of society s neglect. Riis called his small subjects Street Arabs engaging powerful middle-class feelings about the exotic nature of Arabs, and the perception that Arabs move around quite a bit. He stated, The Street Arab has all the faults and all the virtues of the lawless life he leads In this photo Riis hired the young toughs to reenact a common crime by having them mug one of their own. He then paid all the boys with cigarettes.

23 Jacob A. Riis, Street Arabs in Sleeping Quarters, c. 1880s

24 Jacob A. Riis, Street Arabs in Sleeping Quarters, c. 1880s 1. At what time of day does it appear this photo has been taken? 2. Do you believe these children are actually homeless? Why or why not? 3. Zoom in on their faces, is there anything about their expressions that may cause you to question the reliability or authenticity of the photograph (in regards to whether he is actually capturing homeless/sleeping children)?

25 Jacob A. Riis, Street Arabs in Sleeping Quarters, c. 1880s Riis did not limit his arrangements to the children street toughs. He also posed more than a half a dozen images of young boys sleeping in stairwells and doorways. The pictures appear to have been taken in broad daylight and the small subjects are obviously pretending to be asleep. Whether they were indeed homeless remains a question open to modern viewers, but not one likely to have been asked by the photographer s contemporaries.

26 Arthur Rothstein, Descendants of former slaves of the Pettway Plantation, Gees Bend, Alabama, 1937

27 Arthur Rothstein, Descendants of former slaves of the Pettway Plantation, Gees Bend, Alabama, What do you notice in this photograph with regard to the people present? In other words who does it seem may be missing from this family photo? 2. What might have been Rothstein s purpose in taking a photo with this population missing? 3. In spite of the fact that slavery has been over for over 70 years at the time this was taken what elements of the photo remind the viewer of the slavery era? 4. Overall, what might have been Rothstein s goal or motivation in taking this photo? What was its purpose, what was he hoping to achieve?

28 Arthur Rothstein, Descendants of former slaves of the Pettway Plantation, Gees Bend, Alabama, 1937 Photographs could also illustrate the racist assumptions of private and government aid agencies. Arthur Rothstein took the photograph from the previous slide in Gee s Bend, Alabama, in the spring of Rothstein s employer, the Farm Security Administration (FSA), had been providing assistance to this community of African-American sharecroppers for more than two years by the time the young government photographer arrived. Nevertheless, Rothstein was instructed to photograph the community as if there had been no such assistance granted to capture its so-called primitive condition and thus drum up support for the kind of federal aid that the FSA was providing to rural farmers. Rothstein was told that the families at Gee s Bend lived on an old plantation, abandoned by white owners three decades earlier. Isolated from the surrounding society, Gee s Bend appeared to the government as a throwback to tribal society in Africa. The community was marked by a high rate of out-of-wedlock births, The caption for the image says that this is a single-family group. That caption implies that the sole male figure in the picture has fathered all of the children present. Both the pose and the caption stand at odds with normal FSA practice of showing small white families, lest the presence of many children put off viewers rather than enlist their sympathy. Rothstein showed no such restraint in his photographs or his captions. In the same courtyard picture, Rothstein neglected to identify his main subject as the village elder who stood proudly before his extended family. The man was a grandfather and great grandfather, and this is a multigenerational portrait. The fathers of the children do not appear in the picture, either because Rothstein excluded them or because they were working at the time the photo was taken.

29 Arthur Rothstein, Home of the Pettways, now inhabited by African-Americans. At Gees Bend, Alabama, 1937

30 Arthur Rothstein, Home of the Pettways, now inhabited by African-Americans. At Gees Bend, Alabama, How does this photo run opposite to the depiction we saw in the previous photograph? 2. How does this photograph run opposite the written description of Pettway Plantation we read about in the previous slide? 3. What examples do you see in the construction or maintenance of the house that proves the African-American families living at Pettway Plantation were skilled craftspeople? 4. Which photograph of the people at Pettway Plantation do you think did a better job of furthering both the FSA s and Rothstein s agenda, the first or second? Why?

31 Arthur Rothstein, Home of the Pettways, now inhabited by African-Americans. At Gees Bend, Alabama, 1937 In spite of the fact that Rothstein was told the large, sprawling families lived in rude shacks that they erected themselves made of sticks and mud, we see in the previous photo this was not the case. Further examination of all the Rothstein images provide visual clues suggesting that the African-American residents of Gee s Bend lived not in a primitive society but in an economically depressed condition similar to that of white sharecroppers in the rural South. Far from proving that the property s occupants were unable to care for themselves, the images demonstrate a high level of competence and self-sufficiency. The notched log timbers of these buildings provided ample proof of the artisanal skill of the residents.

32 Jacob Riis, Five Cents Lodging, Bayard Street, c. 1889

33 Jacob Riis, Five Cents Lodging, Bayard Street, c What sort of issues might Riis have faced taking photographs in darkened environments as opposed to light? 2. What technology might Riis have employed in order to combat the issue faced by taking photographs in a darkened room? 3. Taking your thoughts from #1 and 2 into consideration, why might the reliability of this photograph be called into question? 4. Zoom in on the faces, how would you describe their expressions? 5. How might these expressions further enhanced the message or agenda Riis was hoping to achieve through his photographs? 6. What sort of feelings do you believe photos such as these were meant to arouse in those observing this photograph in 1889?

34 Jacob Riis, Five Cents Lodging, Bayard Street, c In the modern era of digital imagery and motor driven cameras, it is easy to forget that photographers like Jacob Riis operated with equipment that imposed constraints on their actions and their ability to craft a candid scene. In previous photos throughout this presentation we saw examples where Riis had to command his subjects to be still lest stray motion ruin his photograph. Perhaps he negotiated with the subjects himself; more likely he relied on his companions to help set the scene while he unpacked and set up his camera equipment. Riis famous after dark photographs required even more planning and preparation. To capture the dim tenement interiors that so shocked his audience, he employed a new flash powder, which resulted in the often startled expressions of the people he photographed and the depiction of interiors with harsh lights and shadows that may have exaggerated their actual appearance. Riis took the image in the previous slide in a crowded tenement room where single males paid Five Cents a Spot for a night s lodging. Riis entered this space with the help of the landlord, who received assurances that he would not be prosecuted for running an illegal-lodging house. Riis also needed the cooperation of the sleeping subjects, who had to appear to be awakened by his flash. In order to create that appearance, Riis had to have them pose with their faces toward the camera and then hold still while he ignited his flash powder and made the exposure.

35 Walker Evans, 1936 #1 1. What elements of the ways in which the men were posed might lead one to call the reliability of this photograph into question? 2. What elements happening around the men in the photo could have impacted the quality or authentic nature of the photograph? 3. Walker Evans worked and took photographs for the FSA or Farm Security Administration a government effort designed to combat American rural poverty during the Depression. How might the FSA s mission affected Evans as a photographer? Particularly with regard to how he attempted to get his message or agenda across through his photos?

36 Walker Evans, 1936 #1 Even with later advances in film speed and camera technology, documentary photographers of the 1930s continued to direct the actions of their subjects, although they strongly denied doing so. Walker Evans was the most outspoken of the FSA photographers in his denial of any arrangements prior to taking photos. Yet Evans s camera of choice was a bulky 8X10 view camera that had to be mounted on a tripod. Like Riis, he needed the cooperation of his subjects, who agreed to remain motionless while he made the exposure. If they moved, they would blur the image. In this 1936 picture of African-American men in front of a Vicksburg, Mississippi, barbershop, Evans arranged his subjects so that they appear to be unaware of his presence. One of the males seated on the bench is turned at right angles to the camera. By posing his subjects in this way, Evans suggests that this is a candid, unposed image. Evans had to set up his tripod across the street and had to wait for a break in street traffic or stop the flow of traffic altogether. Evans achieved his goal, and critics praised this image as a candid presentation of a sidewalk gathering in the black section of Vicksburg.

37 Walker Evans, 1936 #2

38 Walker Evans, 1936 #2 1. What differences do you notice between Photo #1 and Photo #2? 2. What do you notice about the skin color of the new (more clearly represented) addition to Photo #2? 3. What purpose or message might Walker Evans have been attempting to get across by including this man in Photo #2? 4. Taking into consideration the time period, and the part of the country in which this photo was taken why would this have been significant?

39 Walker Evans, 1936 #1

40 Walker Evans, 1936 #2 If you compare the Walker Evans, 1936 Photo # to Photo #2 (taken the same day), it further suggests that the photographer might have directed the positions and poses of his subjects, since the same men appear in five different compositions. In Photo #2, there are four men on the bench. The new arrival is actually a white man (second from the left of the bench), who may have been seated in the automobile in the previous image. Viewed by itself, this photograph suggests a degree of interracial harmony in Vicksburg. As for the white man, he may have been Evans s tour guide, in which case his insertion is actually an act of dominance, one which the black men are powerless to resist.

41 Russell Lee, Christmas Dinner in Iowa, 1936 (with and without father)

42 Russell Lee, Christmas Dinner in Iowa, 1936 (with and without father) 1. What feelings or message was Lee attempting to convey through the use of children in these photographs? 2. Why do you suppose Lee had the children standing in the photos as opposed to sitting? How does this help to effectively transmit his message? 3. Which photo more effectively transmits his message, the right or left? Why? 4. Which member of the traditional family is missing from both photographs? How does this further enhance Lee s ability to transmit his message?

43 Russell Lee, Christmas Dinner in Iowa, 1936 (with and without father) Russell Lee s Christmas Dinner in Iowa (1936), documented the lives of white sharecroppers in rural Iowa. Near the small town of Smithland, Lee took a series of pictures of a tenant farmer struggling to make a living on a landscape that had been ravaged by drought. The photograph on the left shows the farmer s children standing at a table eating dinner on Christmas day. The place at the head of the table is vacant and the image raises the troubling prospect of parental abandonment. Lee took another photograph (on the right) of this meager meal, this one showing the father in his accustomed place at the head of the table.

44 Russell Lee, Mrs. Earl Pauley and some of her children, 1936

45 Russell Lee, Mrs. Earl Pauley and some of her children, Who is present in this photo that was not present in Christmas Dinner in Iowa? 2. How does the presence of this new person help change the message or story Lee hoped to convey in Christmas Dinner in Iowa? 3. Why does this person s presence help change the message or story? 4. Lee claims he forgot that this person was present that day, and chose to use Christmas Dinner in Iowa (without father) as the definitive photograph from that day. Do you believe him? Why or why not?

46 Russell Lee, Mrs. Earl Pauley and some of her children, 1936 Long after his retirement from government service, Lee was asked about the circumstances surrounding Christmas Dinner in Iowa. Lee remembered the name of the farmer (father), Earl Pauley, and recalled taking a number of pictures on the farm. He told an interviewer that Pauley was a widower and was doing his best to provide for his needy children. These recollections added power and poignancy to Lee s portrait. Yet in this instance, Lee s memory betrayed him, for the FSA file contains a photograph of Pauley s wife standing in the doorway of the shack with two of the children who later posed for the dinner photograph. This unpublished image provides clear evidence that Lee assigned places at the dinner table. He asked the father to step out of the scene but never made room for the mother. Her presence would have diminished the dramatic scene that Lee had in mind.

47 Lewis Hine, One Arm and Four Children, 1910

48 Lewis Hine, One Arm and Four Children, How most likely did the man in the photograph lose his arm? 2. What message or story might Hine have been attempting to convey by using a one armed father in this photograph? 3. What do you suppose was Hine s goal or agenda in terms of capturing and publishing this photograph? 4. What does the loss of the father s arm potentially mean for the future of his family? 5. How do the expressions on the faces of the children and the mother help to further convey this message? 6. Do you find Hine s label for this photo to be an effective method for conveying his message or story? Why or why not?

49 Lewis Hine, One Arm and Four Children, 1910 Hine recorded this photograph for the section of the Pittsburgh Survey that dealt with industrial accidents. To illustrate how families were victimized when the head of the household could no longer work, Hine posed an amputee father in the foreground with the man s wife and four children slightly to the rear. From a standpoint of composition and aesthetic design, the image left much to be desired. Although Hine made willing subjects of this man and his family, the poses were awkward and the facial expressions of the children threatened to undercut the feeling that Hine intended. Hine overcame these obstacles by providing a caption for the picture that riveted viewers attention on the problem of industrial accidents. He labeled the image One Arm and Four Children. In this and other photographs for the Pittsburgh Survey, Hine borrowed the language of the reformers and added it to his images. In so doing he fused the power of the raw image with the persuasiveness of the written word.

50 Russell Lee, Mexican Father and Children, 1939

51 Russell Lee, Mexican Father and Children, Which member of the traditional American family is conspicuously absent from all four photographs? 2. Do you believe this member was not an actually a part of the family? Using at least one of the four photographs, and specific details of the photograph explain why or why not you believe this is the case. 3. What element is suspicious about Figure 3? Why is it suspicious? 4. What message or story is Lee hoping to convey through these photographs? Consider the state and condition of both the home and the characters? 5. How does the attire of the father and the daughter run in direct opposition to the message or story that Lee is hoping to convey?

52 Russell Lee, Mexican Father and Children, How does the message or story in this series of photographs relate to Lee s photographs of the Pauley family in Iowa? 7. How does the message or story in this series of photographs relate to Rothstein s photos of the Pettway Plantation in Gees Bend, Alabama? 8. What do you suppose the little girl is highlighting in Figure 4? (hint, the photos were taken during Lent) 9. In all likelihood which member of the family (either present or missing) set up this display from Question #8? Why do you believe it may have been this family member (either present or missing)? 10. Overall, how does this series of images relate to what you know about the opinion held by many Americans from this time period regarding immigrants?

53 Russell Lee, Mexican Father and Children, 1939 These are photographs that Russell Lee took of Mexican households in San Antonio and the Rio Grande valley in the winter and spring of They are typical of Lee s photographic coverage of housing and health conditions in the several Mexican enclaves he visited. It can be deduced that these images are of the same family, because the young girl appears in figures one, two, and four, while the young boy appears in figures one and three. It would appear that the man in figure one is a single head of household because no adult female appears in any of the images. It also appears that Lee took the doorway shot first and then proceeded to the interior of the house. These images offer evidence about how photographer Russell Lee managed to enter Mexican households and gain access to such a private space as the family bedroom. We know from interviews with Lee that he did not speak Spanish, yet he was able to gain the cooperation of his Mexican subjects to record intimate details of their lives. Figure 1 is a key image in this regard because it has the father standing in the doorway of his home in a pose that suggests both parental authority and an ability to provide for his offspring. He is dressed in a clean white shirt and his daughter in a dress with a bow in her hair. This attire is similar to what a family might have worn in a visit to a photographer s studio to have their portrait recorded. In effect, Lee gained the cooperation of his subjects by allowing them to present themselves to the camera. Little did they know that Lee would undercut the father s authority by writing a brief caption that called attention to the makeshift construction of the house.

54 Russell Lee, Mexican Father and Children, 1939 In Figure 2 he has posed the young girl at the entrance to the kitchen, and he shows her drinking out of a metal cup. We are to presume that she has dipped water from the bucket that sits in front of her on top of the stove. From examining other photographs that Lee took in San Antonio, we can surmise that he was calling attention to the lack of proper sanitary facilities in Mexican households and to the dangers of drawing from contaminated water supplies. In the front of the image, his focus falls on the kitchen s dirt floor. In the captions for other photographs he labels such floors as health hazards. As if to drive home his point, he takes a picture of a young boy lying in bed [Figure 3], and the caption claims that he is sick. Yet a close examination of this image shows that the youngster was well enough to pose in the doorway in the first image in the series. The final photograph in the series is by far the most intriguing. The young girl stands on a bed and points to objects assembled in the corner of the room. The caption is silent on the meaning of these objects, but from other Lee photographs of similar assemblages we learn that this is a home altar, and that most Mexican households have such sacred spaces. From the date of these photographs (March 1939) we learn that Lee visited the majority of Mexican households during Lent. Lee s subjects may have given him access to interiors because they wanted him to record their religious displays and to see the extra decorations they applied for the observance of the Easter season.

55 Russell Lee, Mexican Father and Children, 1939 While Lee duly recorded these altars, he rarely made mention of them in his captions except to say that many of them were quite primitive. He employed that term much the same as Arthur Rothstein did in captioning his photographs of Gee s Bend, Alabama. Scholars have documented the importance of Mexican home altars, which were constructed by female heads of households who also passed the tradition down to their daughters. Presumably, the young girl in the series is learning the craft from her mother. Yet why would Lee exclude the mother from the series? Perhaps she was absent, although the daughter s dress and the bow in her hair suggest that the mother might have outfitted her daughter for the photographs. Lee appears to have been duplicating the strategy he employed in creating Christmas Dinner in Iowa. Here is a family torn apart by poverty. Yet in his Iowa photographs, Lee was creating images designed to provoke sympathy for hard-working white sharecroppers who needed temporary federal assistance to weather hard times. Lee s photographs and their captions suggest that he had no such agenda in mind in his visit to Texas. Quite the contrary, his images and captions of Mexican households called attention to dirt, disease, and disorder and suggested that the Mexicans were a primitive people unable to care for themselves. Ironically this factual finding was not a prelude to a call for help for Mexicans but a dramatic statement that if white Texans did not receive federal assistance that they would end up in a primitive condition much like their Mexican neighbors.

56 Final Questions Explain in your own words what it means to be a documentary photographer, and rewrite the captions of three historical (black and white) photographs from the presentation that would make the photos examples of true, authentic, and real documentary photography. Using evidence from the presentation or the historical (black and white) photographs themselves provide and describe three examples of the ways in which technology or the lack thereof negatively impacted the reliability of the photographs in question. Using evidence from the presentation or the historical (black and white) photographs themselves provide and describe three examples of the ways in which the documentary photographer s message or agenda negatively impacted the reliability of the photographs in question.