A Vision Shared: A Classic Portrait of America and Its People 1935–1943

Thanks for the link. Dorothea Lange is a very underrated photographer who is right up there with Walker Evans and Robert Frank.

We need a government grant program in the US like the old Federal Art Program to employ artists and photographers, rather than spending huge sums of money making war and creating problems for other countries. Let the artists receive a modest monthly stipend so they can concentrate on making images. The country is in dire need of something like this to pull it's citizen's heads out of online newspapers, twitter, facebook and and instagram.
 
Steve M. said:
We need a government program so
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Sometimes I wonder why my honest responses sound like trolling, but here goes anyway.

The last thing this country needs is another “program”, especially one which purports to make people creative. “If only someone paid me, I would make worthwhile photos.”
Excuse the shade I am about to throw on the photographer that the National Park Service/government chose, out of multiple applicants, to reward with a paid contract to be the new Ansel Adams, but it is fair to say that, though he’s okay, he gets bested every day by average schmos getting lucky shots just because they happened to be in the right place in the right park at the right time. For free.

Crowd sourcing a temporal snapshot of a given country, at a given time, will yield a far more honest and complete view than will come from a single person, with a “vision”, i.e. a point to prove either to himself or others. That’s great if you are interested in immersing oneself in another’s particular vision, but not if you are interested in accurately documenting the incredible complexity of an era. Choosing photographers to do that, due to the inevitable politics involved, is something that the government should stay well away from, because the results will tend towards propaganda, one way or the other.

Photography is cheap as chips. The notion that humanity is missing out on significant art because we have failed to add one more government gravy train is no more than that, a notion that some people have. If you are a photographer with some ability, there’s no doubt it would be nice, but the ones who will only respond to their inner creative voice if there’s a government program to grease their path are not likely to produce much of value anyway. Creativity is a compulsion, it isn’t something that only gets turned on when someone puts a quarter in the meter.
Anyone wanting proof need only look at the results of some of the NEA grants for poets, or local theatrical productions, for example.

There is money out there for good work anyway, from private sources. Always has been. The catch there is that you have to prove yourself with results before you cash out.

Others disagree, I realize, that’s nothing new. That’s fine.
 
Most of the organizations that want good images get them for free so there isn't that much money out there for the really good artists. This is an era of celebrity not merit. An artist's work these days is largely judged on their ability to reach more people, get more likes and more thumbs up than any merit of the work itself. The squeakiest wheel gets the oil. It's unfortunately the exact same way in politics.
So what the government needs to do is put art and art education back in schools. We need to pay teachers what we pay congressmen. Education needs to be a true foundation of a thriving society, not just something to allow subsistence wages to be earned by generations.
We can't have just 1/3 of the globe being raised to hold menial retail and service jobs to earn money to buy things from others in menial retail and service jobs, produced by 2/3 of a nearly enslaved population.
Sorry to go off topic. The WPA created amazing work all over the country, and so did QT Luong recently in our National Parks. Seeing one person's vision is and should be an inspiration to go to the same place and make your vision able to be shared with the world. In pencil, ink, paint, photography, sculpture, dance, poetry or simple spoken narrative. To say that another's singular vision is worth less is to discount the whole notion of expression altogether. Enjoy a vapid existence of empty homogeneity otherwise, a death of entropy so to speak.
Phil Forrest
 
DL and her partner were hired by government to document on what was going on with migrants. She photographed and he was documenting it. Their reporting helped with triggering of government supporting programs.
And because she was on the file, later on government hired her to photograph Japanese Americans been placed in concentration camp. Ansel Adams was also hired, but he was just taking passport like pictures. DL revealed this stupidity all. It was true documentary shown how innocent and loyal to county people were brushed by morons in government and military as enemies.
Just like Stalin did with Chechen. They had government programs back then to lie to the masses, exactly same is now.

Does normal country needs to hire people like DL these days?
Frank and Winogrand were sponsored not by the government, BTW.
Isn't it what people at CBC, BBC supposed to do? USA doesn't have it in the States, I guess, but VoA is doing big job outside. Just like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
 
Larry Cloetta said:
Sometimes I wonder why my honest responses sound like trolling, but here goes anyway.

The last thing this country needs is another “program”, especially one which purports to make people creative. “If only someone paid me, I would make worthwhile photos.”
Excuse the shade I am about to throw on the photographer that the National Park Service/government chose, out of multiple applicants, to reward with a paid contract to be the new Ansel Adams, but it is fair to say that, though he’s okay, he gets bested every day by average schmos getting lucky shots just because they happened to be in the right place in the right park at the right time. For free.

Crowd sourcing a temporal snapshot of a given country, at a given time, will yield a far more honest and complete view than will come from a single person, with a “vision”, i.e. a point to prove either to himself or others. That’s great if you are interested in immersing oneself in another’s particular vision, but not if you are interested in accurately documenting the incredible complexity of an era. Choosing photographers to do that, due to the inevitable politics involved, is something that the government should stay well away from, because the results will tend towards propaganda, one way or the other.

Photography is cheap as chips. The notion that humanity is missing out on significant art because we have failed to add one more government gravy train is no more than that, a notion that some people have. If you are a photographer with some ability, there’s no doubt it would be nice, but the ones who will only respond to their inner creative voice if there’s a government program to grease their path are not likely to produce much of value anyway. Creativity is a compulsion, it isn’t something that only gets turned on when someone puts a quarter in the meter.
Anyone wanting proof need only look at the results of some of the NEA grants for poets, or local theatrical productions, for example.

There is money out there for good work anyway, from private sources. Always has been. The catch there is that you have to prove yourself with results before you cash out.

Others disagree, I realize, that’s nothing new. That’s fine.
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Well, Larry I agree.
 
I admire the work done by Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans and the others during the great depression. But this is a completely different era.

I for one am not interested in paying more taxes so that our government can hire a few photographers along with the inevitable administration necessary to support them.

Just gather a few of the millions of cell phone photos that are posted by people every single day and you will do more than the WPA photographers were ever able to do.
 
Larry Cloetta said:
Creativity is a compulsion,.
Click to expand...

I guess there goes the notion that anyone can be commissioned to create an art piece. Sorry Michelangelo, no façade of the Basilica commissioned pieces for you! (And a zillion other artists who were commissioned to create all manner of art...) Art is a "creative complusion" you see.

Your argument boild down to, "My tax dollars... grumble, grumble..." Seems t' me.
 
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