The case of Walker Evans and the alarm clock......

[Kirk Gittings]

http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2009...-clock-part-3/

Which goes to prove what? That Walker Evans was an artist who cared about light and composition? I always assumed he was. As an architectural photographer, I have almost always found the natural furniture layout to be arranged inelegantly from a photographic POV. Even for HABS submittals, if I was prohibited from rearranging furniture I would feel visually hamstrung. The plain fact is that lenses distort space and even to make them look like they do to the eye you have to do things like move furniture. If Evans hadn't cared about composition and light we probably would not know who he was.

[Robert Hughes]

This NYT series is irritating, it exists merely for the ego satisfaction of the writer, enabling him to name names and associate himself with important historical figures: "FDR, Walker Evans ... ME!"

But, as they say, all advertising is good advertising.

[Daniel_Buck]

wow, people will argue and nit-pick just about anything, haha! I hope nobody ever nit-picks my work like that after I'm dead. At least do it while I'm alive so that I can explain my actions so there isn't so much conjecture. Cause there was this one photo where I had to bend back a little twig infront of the lens to get a clear shot of the tree I was eyeing....

[Ron Marshall]

Printing that sort of drivel it's a wonder that more papers haven't gone bust!

[paulr]

Guys, did you read the whole series? The times didn't invent these controversies. They've been around for a long time.

The issue, I think, is the conflicting expectations heaped onto news photos vs. documentary photos vs. art photos.

People are pretty clear on the boundaries with writing (high school students learn the difference between a news article and a feature), but many readers, and unfortunately many photographers, have lumped all the work done with a camera together.

The result is this kind of debate over truth and deceit, information and art.

Besides, this kind of phorensic deconstruction of on of the masters' working styles can be interesting, at least to me. Especially when put in a historical and cultural context.

[Doug Howk]

I suspect Morris' point is that its one thing to do some arranging but another to add elements to the composition from outside what is available locally - at least for photo-documentary purposes. An alarm clock is rather incomprehensible given the Burroughs' situation.

[Kirk Gittings]

An alarm clock is rather incomprehensible given the Burroughs' situation.

That is not the conclusion of the article.

[paulr]

What's more at the core of this particular investigation is that Evans claimed (apparently with some pride) that he never rearranged anything.

[Kirk Gittings]

What's more at the core of this particular investigation is that Evans claimed (apparently with some pride) that he never rearranged anything.

I am curious to see some quotes related to that claim and what period those would be from.

Documentary: That’s a sophisticated and misleading word. And not really clear… The term should be documentary style…

WE

[paulr]

I'm sure either James Curtis or Alan Trachtenberg could point you to quotes.

From the article:
Curtis: I was talking to Alan Trachtenberg [a professor of American history at Yale]. And Alan said, “Well, when your article on Evans came out, I was mad as hell.” And I said, “Well, what were you mad about?” And he said, “Well, what difference does it make if he moved furniture around inside the sharecroppers’ cabins?” And I said, “Because Evans has been regarded as the high apostle of documentary honesty, and he said he never did things like that.” And afterwards, Trachtenberg replied, “Oh hell, we all know he was a liar.”

Documentary: That’s a sophisticated and misleading word. And not really clear… The term should be documentary style…

Except the images in question were presented as Documentary, with a capital D.

There's room for debate about what that means. Historians have a hard time differentiating the documentary tradition from the propaganda tradition.

But to get a sense of the significance, these pictures were commissioned by the government to build support, by showing what things were like.

Is a documentary photograph bound to the same standards of literalness as a news photograph? I don't know ... but some people seem to think so, which is why even at the time there was rancor over some of the FSA images. And Evans himself seemed to think so.