the photographic essay
‘I saw and approached the hungry and desperate
mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember
how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but
I do remember she asked me no questions. I made fi ve
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
fi elds, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold
the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that
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.’ Dorothea Lange from: Popular Photography, Feb.
1960.FSA
The 1930s saw a rapid growth in the development of the photographic story. During this decade the
Farm Security Administration (FSA) commissioned photographers to document America in the grip
of a major depression. Photographers including Russell Lee, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans and
Arthur Rothstein took thousands of images over many years. This project provides an invaluable
historical record of culture and society whilst developing the craft of documentary photography.
The photo agencies
In the same decade Life magazine was born along with a host of like-minded magazines. These
publications dedicated themselves to showing ‘life as it is’. Photographic agencies were formed
in the 1930s and 1940s to help feed the public’s voracious appetite for news and entertainment.
The greatest of these agencies Magnum was formed in 1947 by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert
Capa, Chim (David Seymour) and George Rodger. Magnum grew rapidly with talented young
photographers being recruited to their ranks. The standards for honesty, sympathetic understanding
and in-depth coverage were set by such photographers as W. Eugene Smith. Smith was a Life
photographer who produced extended essays staying with the story until he felt it was an honest
portrayal of the people he photographed. He went on to produce the book Minamata about a small
community in Japan who were being poisoned by toxic waste being dumped into the waterways
where the people fi shed. This was and remains today an inspirational photo-essay.
ACTIVITY 1
Research a photographic story that was captured by either an FSA photographer or a
photographer working for the Magnum photo agency.
What do the images communicate about the human condition?Migrant Mother - Dorothea Lange