This photo would be typical of those taken from the Farm Security Administration’s collection in the Library of Congress in our opinion. But it does not come from their collection. She belongs to DPI. Moreover, I would argue that this style is similar to that of Russell Lee, one of the great FSA photographers from the 1930s. For us to add this image to our collection was a no-brainer.
“Amish Woman With A Washtub“; Pennsylvania (May 15, 1937).
Photographers tend to specialize in a particular discipline. Some shoot only weddings, while others may shoot only babies, or railroads, landscapes, portraits, etc. There was a recent report of a photographer who decided that he wanted to shoot only funerals. For us at DPI it is about people in their environment. This is the nature of photojournalism and documentary photography. It is useful to think in terms of sectionalism or regionalism from a photographer’s perspective as this will facilitate focusing on a location to which access is easily attainable.