FSA Documentary
FSAドキュメンタリー / 1935–1944 / Style / Photography Movements
The documentary program of Depression-era America's Farm Security Administration. Lange's Migrant Mother and 270,000 archived negatives defined the public role of documentary.
At a glance
Visual cues
- Portraits preserving dignity
- Living conditions described
- The archive as state project
- Field information in captions
Best used for
- Program records for agencies and foundations that keep their subjects' dignity
- Long-term community documentation built so it can be searched later
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Dictionary entry
- Type
- Log place, date and situation in a fixed form, never opinion
- Composition
- Always pair a portrait with the setting that person lives in
- Material
- Monochrome throughout, camera height matched to the subject
- Caution
- Emphasizing the look of hardship becomes the quick route to sympathy, and what was meant as a record turns the people in it into a spectacle.
- Further study
- Roy Stryker's shooting scripts / Walker Evans / Yale's Photogrammar
Related entries
- Photo Essay (フォトエッセイ)Shared effects: Intimacy / Trust.Compare FSA Documentary and Photo Essay
- WPA Poster (WPAポスター)Shared effects: Trust / Intimacy.Compare FSA Documentary and WPA Poster
More from Photography Movements
Continue through styles in the same Photography Movements family, prioritised by shared effects.
- Pictorialism (ピクトリアリズム)Shared effects: Intimacy / Calm.
- New Objectivity Photography (新即物主義写真)Shared effects: Trust / Calm.
- New Topographics (ニュー・トポグラフィックス)Shared effects: Calm / Trust.
Browse all Photography Movements entries
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- https://indexstyle.org/styles/fsa-documentary
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