In this podcast, we explore Walker Evans’ work with the Farm Security Administration (FSA), specifically his photograph . Vicinity of Selma, Alabama. We engage with Roy Stryker’s mission, capturing “America for Americans,” and the politics behind the collection. Simultaneously, we address Evans’ desire to make an artistic product and what this means for the truth value of a documentary image. Engaging in close visual analysis of Store with false front. Vicinity of Selma, Alabama, we discuss the aestheticization of poverty and labor and the role of the human body within the context of Evans’ works. We also explore another FSA photograph by Arthur Rothstein, entitled Sign, Birmingham, Alabama, and discuss how it also engages with the politics of the FSA and promotes cultural stereotypes. We end by wrestling with a critical question, do documentary images have any objective truths at all?

��̱������� for a transcription and bibliography as well as images of the works discussed in today’s episode.

This podcast is part of the Crop and Click series featuring student research on documentary photography from our collection. ��̱������� for a portfolio of all the works discussed in the series.

Hosted and produced by Nora Fox and Nathaniel Zuckerberg. Cover art by Lucy Sherman ’23.

This podcast is centered around the 1991 Nan Coulter photograph, Azle, Texas: War Decor, Photographs in America, which features a building with yellow ribbons on the doors. The hosts, Savannah Compare and Ava Steinberger, will analyze the symbolism in the composition of the image, as well as tie the image into the complexities of war photography and how much it varies and symbolizes within the larger context of war. The ribbons in the Nan Coulter photograph signify American civilian’s solidarity with the soldiers fighting in the Gulf War, and their universal nature allowed for the public to use them in order to shape whatever message they wanted to send. This podcast will connect the versatility of the ribbons to the complexity of war images and how they all represent a wide range of perspectives regarding war.

��̱������� for a transcription and bibliography as well as images of the works discussed in today’s episode.

This podcast is part of the Crop and Click series featuring student research on documentary photography from our collection. ��̱������� for a portfolio of all the works discussed in the series.

Hosted and produced by Savannah Compare and Ava Steinberger. Cover art by Lucy Sherman ’23.