The Pictures are The Things
The Farm Security Administration (FSA) was a U.S. government agency that operated during the Great Depression and the early years of World War II. It was created in 1937 as part of the New Deal programs initiated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to address the economic hardships farmers and rural communities faced. The primary purpose of the Farm Security Administration was to provide aid and assistance to farmers struggling with poverty and agricultural challenges. The agency aimed to improve the living conditions of rural families, promote sustainable farming practices, and help farmers achieve economic stability.
For this project, I decided to go with the theme of build it up to break it. After doing some research in the Library of Congress, I came across the Farm Security Administration collection. From there, I was inspired to recreate images from those photos. I had asked a friend to be my test subject as I felt they were well suited for my idea. I intentionally took the picture of him with no face shown to create the feeling of the lingering history. The FSA is best known for its photographic documentation project as these images provided a visual record of the challenges faced by farming families during the Great Depression.
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ReplyDeleteOld Is New Again Critique of Artist Hang Le By Emily Furr
ReplyDeleteThe work from Hang Le is in black and white with a male figure at the center and a landscape in the background. The male figure is sort of faced toward the left of the photograph. His hands are holding onto his carhartt overalls with a black sweatshirt underneath. The subject is wearing an American flag bandana around his neck and a white or tan cowboy hat on his head.The subject's face from the bridge of his nose upwards is covered by the cowboy hat because he is looking downwards.The subject appears to be clean with only the overalls being wrinkled. There is a shallow depth of field with the man being the center and in focus while the background consists of dead grass and trees that are out of focus. The frame of the photo is black and is not consistent, it bleeds into the image slightly. The bottom and top left corner is completely black while the bottom and top right corners are a see through black. The top of the frame has a handwritten statement “FSA-129-4424-HL”. There are spots where the image has black spots so as to indicate it has been not exposed in certain areas.
The work seems to be about an American farmer who is possibly down on his luck. The farmer would need help from the government program FSA and is less than thrilled about this. He may feel the weight of not being able to provide for himself or his possible family. This would make it a difficult journey for the farmer to then rely on the government for aid. This would make him feel sad and or less than because of the crisis he may be going through, but still humble and strong enough to ask for help.
However, the image could serve better if the subject was a little dirty; it would sell the thought of him being a farmer. The use of wrinkled overalls was a good call because overalls were used all the time. The stance of the subject is powerful and allows the viewer to interpret many emotions. The depth of field was a good use for this project. It works well according to how the depth of field was not great in the 1850s. The subject is so tack sharp it makes it look more digital, if there was a very slight blur on the subject, the image might look more like a wet plate. I say this because there doesn't seem to be anything that would prop this subject up to stand still. I would like to have seen the edges of the frame smudged into the photo, it would look more organic rather than drawn on. The same goes for the splashes of black. I don’t see any cracks which is fine but I would like to have seen some scratches or places where the emulsion may have run. I do like the incorporation of the writing at the top. The handwritten piece falls in line with the original wet plates I have seen and it clues the viewer into what they are looking at.
Overall I think this piece is nice and holds a lot of potential. The subject chosen was great and I could see what you wanted to accomplish clearly. I would have liked to have seen this pushed a little more to look like a wet plate rather than a digital photograph. With a few fixes here and there I could see this photo as a modern day wet plate collodion.