Louise Rosskam Rediscovered

Color photos of Washington, DC by Louise Rosskam

One of the less known Farm Security Administration photographers who documented America during the Great Depression, Louise Rosskam may enjoy greater attention with an exhibit at the American University and the publication of a book "Reviewing Documentary:  The Photographic Life of Louise Rosskam."

In their informative artist bio, The Library of Congress calls her "one of the elusive pioneers of the Golden Age of Documentary Photography", and a post on the blog Secondat gives additional insight into her work.  Although, she seemed to stay in the shadow of her photographer husband, she had great empathy for her subjects and perhaps a more creative approach to her work.  And she pursued her photography hoping it would be a catalyst for social change.  


15 photographers worked for the FSA but only 3 were women.  During her FSA years she photographed in Washington, DC, Vermont and Puerto Rico.  I like how she captures people within a sense of place.  As you meet them, you also get a feeling for how they live their lives.  As she said of her time in Washington, she would pass by areas of poverty and never know they existed.  Until she started taking photographs. 


Here's how she put it:  "With a camera it means you have to talk to the people and you suddenly see an alley dwelling. There it is, these people are alive and living in it... It's there and it becomes part of you and you can't run away from it anymore once you are actually faced with it.  And the next best thing to that is seeing it in a photograph." 


And, " But gradually as I began to see these things and feel them really, I had to react to them so that other people would feel them and see them too." 


You can read two interviews, one with her and her artist/photographer husband Edwin from 1965 and one from 2000 (after her husband had passed).  And you can find some of her images archived at the Library of Congress website American Memories.  

Louise in 2000

I've always been taken with that period in American History and the important work the FSA photographers accomplished.  They brought attention to the lives of every day Americans, capturing a sense of the desperation of the times as well as the courage and dignity of people struggling to cope with those difficult days.  And they did it with work that was eloquent, intimate and engaging.  And by doing so, they changed forever how we see ourselves and the world around us.  

Tom Stone's Unvarnished Truth

Still Airborne

Indigo Child

Spring Rain

You can see his work on Flicker.  His portraits are almost all of people living on the edge.  Broken promises, broken dreams.
Hard to hang out with their images.  You can see the loss and pain in their eyes.  Some are scary, their anger waging war just below the surface.  Some are burnt out, others lost their way.  Wanderers, drifters, missing persons.  And to most of us, invisible.  But not for San Francisco artist Tom Stone.  He clearly feels a connection, and his work has a clarity and openness that shines through. It's strong stuff though, and I'm so aware of sitting in my warm, comfortable home as I look at portraits of all these people who live without.  And seeing them, through Tom Stone's eyes, brings the street right into my head.  

Tom Stone

And then there's the words Stone adds to his pictures.  Telling their story like they would tell it.  When he can.  His piece on Still Airborne for example.  Stone captures the moment they share together, on the street, in the world.  You can tell from his artist statement that he's looking for that common thread, that human connection, that binds us with the people he photographs.  There's passion in his work, and honesty and the courage to look broken dreams in the face.  Hold the gaze.  And reach out a hand.

Musings on Style and Vision

Many photographers develop a style that seems to define their work.  That was certainly true of the old masters.  Take one of my all time favorites, Walker Evans, for example.  His work for the Farm Security Administration is so distinctive.  Perhaps due to his subject matter, but certainly in his eye for composition.  And like all artists, he needed to experiment and grow.  I saw a retrospective of some of that work at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  And while there were some departures from his Depression era photos, including an experiment with subway candids, I think his vision and artistry is best defined by his starkly beautiful FSA images.  You can definitely feel the man behind the camera when you look at that work.


Recently I was perusing the work of Matt Slaby, one of the six photographers that make up Luceo Images.  Two images of his work are below.












I was struck by two portfolios on his site.  The first, Gun Culture USA is more in the typical journalistic tradition.  It's the content that makes the images powerful.  Some are stylized, like the one on the left, while others are more simply recording an event.  But together they make a potent statement about America's love affair with weaponry.  


The way he's positioned these two men in a field, with the strong lines of furrowed ground running to a vanishing point behind them gives the image a surreal quality.  Which is heightened by the juxtaposed gestures of the two men.  The effect is almost laughable, save the deadly force contained in the weapons they're holding.  


Another portfolio The Gulf Oil Spill also has some nicely made images of the impact of the BP disaster.   But the other portfolio I'd like to recommend is The Other Border.  It's quite strong in a totally different way.  The images are dreamlike, abstracted.  Looking at them, you become filled with a sense of mystery and can seemingly track the traces of memory.  I mean, I don't feel like I'm actually seeing what is there, rather I'm seeing a visualization of what the photographer witnessed.  


This work is about the immigrant journey and what you see is strange and dark, mirroring the difficult path taken by the people we see and sense through the photographs.  I like them very much, especially because they're so different from his other work.  And their dreamlike quality gives them a haunting power that echoes the stark reality of their lives.