On Jun 2, 2011, at 2:12 PM, Bob W wrote: > An interesting article here for those comrades who are interested in the > history of social documentary and reportage photography: > <http://www.foto8.com/new/online/blog/1424-worker-photography-movement> > > B >
OK, a couple of glasses of wine later, I have read through the whole interview. Though I'll admit to skimming some portions. I am still not wild about the pretentious tone of the interviewee, but he is after all a museum curator so it may go with the territory. Muttering about style aside, I did find this quite an interesting look at a somewhat coherent photographic movement aiming to illustrate the class struggle articulated mostly by Communist thinkers. "...groups of amateur worker-photographers were exhorted to lay bare, in a 'hard and merciless light', the iniquities and social ills of capitalism..." I am sorry he took a somewhat dismissive stance with respect to the U.S. depression-era works: >> "... the Lewis Hine-FSA-Life magazine paradigm, which involves a reformist >> social-democrat narrative >> of the role of documentary as a paternalistic depiction of the working class >> and the dispossessed." I cannot see how Dorothea Lange's photos are substantively different from those that illustrate the story, but I guess the point is not the images themselves, but rather the way in which the photographers and editors used those photos in shaping a social narrative. Anyway, thanks Bob for the link. stan -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
