Migration and poverty

[Oddmund Garvik <garvik@i-t.fr>]

Several Leica photographers and others have been treating these
questions. I have always admired the work of Lewis Hine from the
beginning of the century (Elis Island). His direct style became a model
for the next generation of photographers. Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange,
Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn a/o worked for the Farm Security
Administration (FSA). The great fresque created by the FSA movement
represent a highlight in the history of photography. As we know, several
of these photographers contributed to Leica's reputation. 

Photographer's engagement created parallel movements. In 1940 the *Photo
League* associated an impressive number of creators, very different,
like Strand, Siskind, Weegee or Weston. The mission for this movement
was to promote the true, or real photography, spread and make popular
the life and the struggle of American workers, and fight against
reactionary works. Considered as an excrescence of the American
communist party, this progressive association was combated by the
maccarthy power and was dissolved in 1951. A model movement for
renunciation, militantism and engagement for numerous photographers, the
*Photo League* is still today too underestimated. 

The movement was prolonged by punctual actions by the informal group
leaded by Cornell Capa: The Concerned Photography. Photographers who had
left the documentary form and joined the reportage, like Eugene Smith,
Cartier-Bresson, Leonard Freed, Ernst Haas, Hiroshi Hamaya, Bruce
Davidson, Marc Riboud, or Dan Weiner, represented this new school of
witness. Some of them, by the way, found a common place for diffusion in
the Magnum Agency. 

Other photographers, between a purely documentary attitude and the
engaged reportage, are carrying on with exemplary works. Danny Lyon has
been photographing Americas expelled people since thirty years.
Sebastiao Salgado creates a fresque all alone, as grandiose as the FSA.
From "Workers" till "Migrations" he contributes to the setting up of a
state of mankind's situation in the world.

Apart from Mary Ellen Mark and some other prominent contemporary Leica
photographers, are there others, more unknown representatives for this
tradition in the US today (or in other countries)? Are any of the
members of the forum working in this direction? Is the Leica still an
adapted tool for this kind of work?

Regards

Oddmund