8. Meeting the photographers

Every photograph has someone behind the camera.

Many people made their livings as itinerant photographers during the early days of photography. Ben Shahn (the photographer, not the subject in this first image) was a Lithuanian-American photographer and muralist who worked for the Farm Security Administration as a photographer.

Many people are aware of Dorothea Lange’s famous image.

Shahn’s work is less well known but just as important. Shahn’s photographs documented rural poverty in the southern United States, helping boost support for public aid programs at a time when they were sorely needed.

 

Similarly, Max Dupain’s image The Sunbaker (alt: The Sunbather) is considered one of Australia’s most iconic photographs, one that the photographer himself had thought was lost.

The State Library of New South Wales has the entire album of photographs, including this image of photographer Olive Cotton, that help contextualize the single image, one that is still inspiring artists to this day.

 

Flickr Commons has many “meta photographs” showing people taking the pictures, or preparing to. From the Provincial Archives of Alberta…

… and the Public Records Office of Norway…

… to the State Library of New South Wales…

… to the San Diego Air and Space Museum…

… to the National Library of New Zealand …

…to the Library of Congress.

Sometimes the gear isn’t visible, but it’s clear you’re viewing a photographer. Here is a New Year’s card from Frances Benjamin Johnston an early American photographer and photojournalist.