This essay will be
looking at the work of documentary photographers employed by the FSA in the
1930s. It will be mentioning what the purpose of these images was and why they
had such an impact on America at the time. To compare with the images of the
FSA photographers, they will be compared to a modern way of documenting. By
looking at the work of Larry Clark and Nan Goldin. By having a very different
style of photography Larry Clarks work will be discussed on how it shocked it’s
viewers, how it influenced other artist such as Nan Goldin and how he got into
film making whilst keeping the raw style of which his photography had. As he
influenced a photographer called Nan Goldin, the essay will go into how her
work is a public journal of her life. In addition to her work it will be
looking at how she is an insider to the people she photographed and how you see
there stories develop as well as Goldin’s throughout her work.
Documentary
Photography in the 1930s was in its prime as it was what people counted on to
get a better understanding and knowledge about what was going on in the world.
This section is going
to be looking at documentary photography in the 1930s from the FSA. The FSA stands
for Farming Security Administration, it is an organisation set up and run by
the United States government during the Great Depression. Their main focus was
to help resolve the problem of rural poverty due to the huge droughts that hit
America.
Roy Stryker, was appointed to head the
photography section of the FSA. His main responsibility was to provide
contemporary images to illustrate and support the written accounts of
conditions in agriculture that were published in official reports.
The reason for the
farmers land turning to dust was a combination of wheat prices rising and many farmers
doing well enough to introduce intensive machinery that could plough the land
faster as an alternative to using horses, but they were so keen to make more
money they used the horses as well as the machines. This was the start of the
problem as they were overploughing the land and it was not getting the chance
to settle and regain its nutritional value. However farmer were not worried, as
the rain would give the land the life it needed. So as well as overploughing
the land they were also overgrazing it, as there was so much food for the
cattle and sheep. It soon ran out but yet again the farmers were not worried,
as the rain would revive the land. Except that the rain never came. Just more
hot weather and high winds which turned the land to dust.
As well as helping
millions of farmers avoid starvation; the FSA was set-up to help the farming
community. They also became known for employing photographers. They were sent
to the rural areas to document the trauma and damage but also to monitor the
situation of what was happening in the dust bowl. This was so that the rest of
America could be made aware of what was happening. It was seen as a difficult
situation for the rest of the country to come to terms with as these
distressing pictures were of fellow Americans trying to survive in harsh
conditions. The photographers that were hired could have shown what it might
have been like as a whole, but instead they went in and showed what it was like
on a more intimate level, by zooming in on the problem and showing the lives of
individuals suffering. As these photographers had been put into the situation,
they were outsiders looking in on the lives of people suffering and they would
show what an outsides view on what they saw the problem as. The didn’t have the
intentions on getting to know the individuals it was just all about reporting
back to the outside world with the pictures that would raise awareness.
Below are a couple of
photographs from some of the FSA photographers, Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans.
The first photo is by Dorothea Lange, who could be seen as the most influential
photographer employed by the FSA in the 1930s, with her very famous photograph
the ‘Migrant Mother’. ‘Migrant Mother’ was one of the most iconic photos of her
time because as it was being reported back to the outside world where it was
seen as a family portrait but it would be certainly different to the family
portraits of what the viewers might be used to. As Lange was known for
capturing the distressed mother figures here is another one of her images of
‘Wife of a Migratory Laborer with Three Children’. This particular image stood
out, because it is representing exactly how any mother might be feeling at that
time and the conditions. If the photograph’s title did not mention that this
woman was a mother of three, the photograph would not have the same impact.
This is because from knowing about the three children this mother is trying to
look after and care for, you can see very clearly that she is struggling. With
her thin arm pressed against her forehead to her pursed lips with a heavy brow,
you get the sense that she does not know what else to do for her children. What
she is going to do for their next meal (if they get one), and how she can get
them out of the situation, as they have probably already sold their car if they
had owned one. Lange photographed mothers well, and when these photographs made
it back to the rest of America, it is possible that they would have pulled on
many heartstrings of other mothers who probably could not imagine raising a
child in those conditions.
Saw and
approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn in by a magnet. I do
not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember
that she asked me no questions. I made five exposures; working closer and
closer from the same direction I did not ask her name or her history. She told
me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on
frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children
killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in
the lean-to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that
my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality
about it.
Figure 1 Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, 1936, Trauma and Documentary
Photography (P86)
Figure 2 Dorothea Lang, Migrant Mother, alternative versions, Photography: A
Critical Introduction
The fact that Lange
chose the picture that she did was important as this image of ‘The Migrant
Mother’ being a close up with all her children huddled into her, shows how
venerable the children were. Yet sill showing the venerability of the mother by
having her delicate hand gently pressed against her face in mid thought. If she
had chosen any of the other four they wouldn’t have had as much of an impact on
the viewers because of the physical distance of the camera and the emotional
distance of the children.
Figure 3 Dorothea Lange, Wife of a Migratory Laborer with Three Children Near
Childress, Texas, Nettie Featherstone, 1938, Trauma and Documentary Photography
of the FSA. P. 6
This next photograph
is by Walker Evans. Evans was in the same group of photographers as Dorothea
Lange but their styles were very different. Lange would get very close and
right into the lives of the people that were suffering. Evans took a more
distant approach; he would mostly photograph stationary situations of places or
living environments. The photograph below is of an empty railroad going through
Mississippi. It is fairly deserted, even the trees are lifeless, and everything
looks still. The only life in the photograph is a few people at the side of the
rail track. It does not look like they will be moving out of the way anytime
soon, and there is nobody waiting for trains or even a train in sight. This
suggests that the rail track is closed. However, there are a few vehicles
parked on the right side of the tracks, which indicates that there were people
living or working there despite the eerie front. The eerie feeling of the
photograph could be from the fact that Walker Evans has taken the photo from a
high view, possibly from a balcony or a bridge. This gives a feeling that these
people are being watched and they are unaware of the photo being taken. It has
a very CCTV feeling about it which also adds to the feeling that someone is
always there watching for a train or some life of some sort.
Figure 4 Walker Evans, Railroad Station, Edwards, Mississippi, 1936. Photography
Collection, Miriam and Ira D.Wallach Divison of Art, Prints and Photographs,
Trauma and Documentary Photography of the FSA, P. 79
From looking at the
work of the FSA photographers it was clear that documentary photography was
very much alive, and was a genre that people became comfortable with. However
in the 1970s Larry Clark came along with a completely different style of work
that was recognised as very taboo. Clark’s work came as shock to the people of
America, as it was something that was not often published for people to see. If
anything, it was ignored or brushed under the rug for people to ignore. His
work was well known for having a big impact on the photography industry as he displayed
images of drug users and erotic nudes of the youth of the time. One of his most
mistreated and powerful books was one called ‘Tulsa’. It was a document of photographs
of Tulsa in the 1960s; it showed everything that the people of Tulsa did not want
to see. They did not want the book to be published because it was most likely
going to give Tulsa a bad name, because of the realism of the photos. This is
why Larry Clark’s work became influential to other photographers and filmmakers.
After he had become
successful with photography, Clark then went onto filmmaking where he stuck to
his realistic, shocking style. As he had done with his photography, he then
shocked America again when he helped write and direct the film ‘Kids’. The film
‘Kids’ showed the young people of New York in the 1990s and probably related to
many other places as well. The film starts off straight away with a sex scene
showing a young girl who could not be any older than 15. It is not just her physical
appearance that shows how young she is, in the background the girl’s bedroom is
filled with stuffed teddies. All the way through the film there are constant
references to show just how young all these children are. Even with the name of
the film is ‘Kids’; it still comes as a bit of a shock when you see their behaviour.
When all that has sunk in, there is the actual storyline about a young girl
finding out she has tested positive for the HIV virus while accompanying a
friend to get tested. She then has the task of tracking down the young man
(Tally) who had given her the sexually transmitted disease. Through her attempts
to find him she discovers that he has already slept with a virgin that morning,
and intends on taking the virginity of a thirteen year old the same evening.
This makes her feel the pressure of the situation and it all gets a bit much,
so she reluctantly accepts a pill from her friend and when she asks what it is
he says it’s ‘Bang up stuff’, meaning the good stuff. She ends up getting to
where Tally is but it is too late, he is already having sex with the 13 year
old. It comes across as so outrageous because Larry Clark and Harmony Korine
get the point across about how easy it was to catch this sexually transmitted
disease at a young age.
It hardly seems
believable so children that young could be picking up STDs, but this film just
puts it into perspective about how easy it was at the time. As Larry Clark grew
up in the same sort of environment as a child, he was able to get this whole
point across very strongly, and the same goes for his photographs.
I think when you see the movie Kids that most of us – not all of us,
but most of us – will say, ‘Yeah, that’s the way we were, that’s the way kids
are.” – Larry Clark
One photographer that
Larry Clark’s work has influenced is Nan Goldin. Clark’s raw style of work was
particularly interesting to Goldin because she seemed to be hanging round in a
similar environment of drug circles to HIV viruses attacking loved ones. Rather
than documenting certain places or situations, she focussed more on the people
around her who were influencing her throughout her life. By doing this she
automatically documented lots of situations and places but it has always been
about the people in the photos that has been the most important factor. Goldin
has a huge archive as she has been photographing the same people for over
twenty years. These people have included friends and lovers that have all led a
similar life to Goldin’s. This is made obvious, as Goldin’s work is a document
of her life. Her work starts off as quite positive and up beat as it was a good
time in her life; she was living in a community with her friends and lovers. In the
photos that Nan was taking she is obviously very close to her subjects and a
lot of the time if the people in her photographs were taking drugs, having sex
or laughing she was doing the same. So by her being in the same situations she
is able to get this close and be a part of the images she is taking.
Life was just one big party at the time
until the drugs bought darkness to Goldin’s life. She got caught up in an
abusive relationship and found her self-experiencing more lows than highs. The
photo of her one-month after she had been beaten shows the remaining marks on
how serious it must have been. It is defiantly documenting domestic violence as
well as her life. Goldin had various relationships afterwards, one of her main
ones was with a woman, and this bought out a softer stream of photos. But that
soon changed as this once life long party lifestyle had come to an end.
Figure 5 Nan one month after being battered, New York City, USA, 1984. Nan Goldin
Phaidon P. 47
Goldin and her friends
were trying to get clean and even more important they were coming to terms with
member of her communal style family being diagnosed with the HIV virus. Goldin
did what she did best and photographed her friends as slowly more and more of
them were being tested positive. She would document how Aids would attack the
human body and what affect it had on loved ones. All the way through her life
you can see these friends of hers and you begin to get use to seeing these
people although you don’t get to know them through the photographs you get comfortable
seeing them. Then out of nowhere you they are in a hospital bed or photos of a
funeral and then the photos of them just stop as she carries on photographing
her life.
Nan Goldin and Larry
Clarks work are completely different styles of works of to the FSA employers. They
have managed to make explicit images into artistic work.
For although it is a good thing if a
spectacle is created to make the world more explicit, it is both reprehensible
and deceitful to confuse the sign with what is signified.
Figure 6 Gotscho kissing Gilles, Paris, France. 1993.
Nan Goldin Phaidon. P. 78
The image above is just one of many of Goldin’s friends that past away from
Aids. In the photograph you can see a males lover kissing his face on his
deathbed. Although these times were difficult for Goldin as well it was clear
by these more emotional images nothing would stop her documenting her life,
even the deaths of her friends were not to be missed out in her archive of
snapshots.
Goldin did not only change the way documentary photography was looked at but
also the human body. It was first seen as goddesses and heroes in paintings,
and then artistic elegant photos in studios were produced. But Nan Goldin and
Larry Clark showed the naked body of normal people in a very uneasy slightly
risky manner.
Documentory photography has managed to survive even through changing styles,
and them styles will continue to change as everything does. But when does it
stop being classed as documentary photography? As technology has advanced and
image manipulation programs such as ‘Photoshop’ and ‘Light room’ have been
introduced, can photographs that have had elements changed to look better be
classified as documentary images? No. The howl point in documenting something
is to show what it looked like at the time. If it was a dark day when the
photograph was taken, if it is being shown as a documentation of that then the
it should be shown however it was taken and not with elements such like colour
being changed to create an inaccurate image.
In conclusion, this essay support’s documentary photography was strong in the
1930s and was very well known. Clark and Goldin presented documentary photography
with a huge change and with a style that was unknown to its viewers. They
presented the world with edgy raw photographs that shocked most people. At this
point documentary photography started to be questioned if it was still alive?
The answer is yes. It was these photographs that strongly showed a new light on
other issues that were closer to home. If anything it made documentary
photography stronger than ever. It was now possible to show difficult
situations what might be tough to look at, through documentary photography.
Documentary photography will always stay alive as long as image manipulation
doesn’t takeover. This was probably one of the main reasons for this genre of
photography to have been questioned. As long as there are people that appreciate
true documentary photographs by shooting what they can see and only influencing
the image by how they aim the camera, then it will never die.
Bibliography
Blair, S.,Rosenberg, E. and Lee, A. (2012) Trauma and documentary photography of the FSA. United States: University of California Press
Barthes, R., 2009. Mythologies (vintage Classics), United Kingdom: Vintage Classics. P.17-18
Walker Evans, Railroad Station, Edwards, Mississippi, 1936. Photography Collection, Miriam and Ira D.Wallach Divison of Art, Prints and Photographs, Trauma and Documentary Photography of the FSA, P. 79
Thompson, J. (1997) The last years of Walker Evans. United Kingdom: New York Thames and Hudson, c1997
Facility, G. T. (2002) I Am a Camera: The Saatchi Gallery. London [England]: Booth- Clibborn Editions.
Korine, H. and Clark, L. (phot.) (1995) Kids. New York: Grove Press.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hgZQ-VrJWIhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B6nMlajUqU
