Photographic Expression in 30's America



	Technical Issues Across the Spectrum Photography as a means of expression was influenced by the technical capabilities and limitations of the processes used to create images. Technical advances in black and white photography in the early twentieth century fostered the evolution of the photographer from a conspicuous collector of staged, static images to a nearly innocuous observer of scenes that could be composed and manipulated with intent. Black and white photography could be the tool of the artist and the journalist, with each employing the medium to convey meaning through imagery. Early color photographic processes were able to capture only truly stationary scenes. Color processes were hampered by their need for greater amounts of light and reliance on collection of multiple images which were added to each other to make a whole. These limitations meant that photographers working in color were forced to capture fixed images in bright conditions. Each new process to capture color on a plate or film led to tradeoffs that sacrificed accurate reproduction of color to technical limitations that ultimately framed the stories that could be told by the color of the light.

	On The Move: Advances in Black and White	Progress in Color: Surmounting obstacles

	Separate Messages in Different Shades: Journalism, Art, and Advertising Separate patterns of communication were established for black white versus color photography in the first third of the 20th century. Shaped by the technical and economic possibilities and the limitations of each mode of image making, the public became increasingly accustomed to the use of photographs to convey meaning and add detail to stories. The proliferation of new forms of media in the 1920’s quickened the pace of transmission and shortened the media cycle. Prosperity allowed for the creation of a consumer culture, which was fed by manufacturers with a desire to have their products showcased. Photographers, editors, artists, and journalists devised distinct vocabularies of non-verbal communication for black and white versus color photography in their separate realms. The ways in which color was used in household goods, textiles, and automobiles became linked with the ways in which these items were portrayed and sold.

	Journalism and Art in Black and White	Color Images in Advertising

	Stories in Every Color: Alternate Views of the Time Images of the 1930’s in the collective American memory are linked undeniably with documentary photography. The palette of this era of suffering and displacement seems inexorably black and white; linen and charcoal; silver and gray. Textbooks read by succeeding generations show stark pictures of breadlines, soup kitchens, migrant camps, children in need, and men stripped of their possessions and their pride. Much of our view of American society during this period was shaped by the photographs produced by the Farm Security Administration(FSA) in the mid to late 1930's. Smaller archives of color photographs from the FSA survived and lay undiscovered until the late 1970's. These photos, along with photos from private collections, present the period in a different light.

	Images of Suffering and Resolve in Black and White	The Great Depression in Color

Site Created June 2005 Jim Baker