Customer Reviews

FSA: The American Vision

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A worthy addition to a very small number of books that present a general selection of Farm Security Administration photos in an art book format. To my mind there are only three others, In this proud land: America, 1935-1943, as seen in the FSA photographs, A Vision Shared: A Classic Portrait of America and Its People, 1935-1943, (the only sumptuous large book production of the three) and Long Time Coming: A Photographic Portrait of America, 1935-1943. 'FSA' easily joins this list with 470 beautifully printed photos on quality paper with an impressive 250+ dpi screen and a unique and interesting editorial format.

Each of the sixteen FSA/OWI photographers gets a chapter that is divided into two parts. Firstly there is a selection of photos covering a single subject, usually between thirteen and twenty-five photos, though John Collier gets an impressive thirty-four of his work in the Pennsylvania coal industry, followed by a general selection of that photographer's work of between four and twelve images. I thought the single theme idea worked well, you can see how Walker Evens seemed to search out monuments and his love of typographic signs or Jack Delano and Russell Lee's interest in people doing ordinary jobs. Esther Bubley has a fascinating twenty-four shots taken on Greyhound bus trips in 1943. Each photographer's gallery selection is a mix of their well-known work and others, some published here for the first time.

The two authors contribute interesting essays, Brannan explains the overall idea of Stryker's vision and Mora writes about the creative aspects of the photographs. The back of the book has a useful chronology and bibliography for each photographer.

'FSA' is a beautiful book of content rich photos but I was rather disappointed with the over generous amount of white space on many pages. So many of these photos are landscape and would suit that book format which is why I think Michael Lesy's 'Long Time Coming' was so successful. It has slightly less photos than 'FSA' but they are bigger and presented in the more appropriate format. The captions also, in 'FSA', are printed on a separate page following each photo selection when they clearly should be on each relevant photo page (when will book designers get this right!). Despite these reservations and as I said earlier, 'FSA' is a wonderful addition to the published photo archive of America's Depression and early war years.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

I bought this to have a permanent, nicely bound book of historic photos of the United States and I was not disappointed. Straight from government archives, these are photos from government-employed photographers who were assigned to go out in the Depression era and photograph what they saw. Today, we should be grateful someone had the foresight to do this. The photos are disturbing, beautiful, stark and moving. What happened to these people and families? Like the photos, so much dust now...but recorded forever. A brilliant book.

This book have done a great job by putting this all together by project/Date base and indicating where they went. It has answered alot of my questions on the FSA photographers.
I am pleased the book used mostly unknown photographs.
I have already raving about this book

The FSA book is a wonderful look at an ear gone by. And the works of Dorothea Lang, Ben Shahn, Walker Evans, Arthur Rothstein, Theodor Jung and Carl Mydans in the early years is well worth the price of the book. But to continue going forward is remarkable. But the things that make this a wonderful collection of photographs is that it is not just the most famous works by the photographers of the FSA but the ones that have not been published in some 70 plus years or not at all. Projects like this come once in a life time. For any photographer who enjoys photo essays this book is a must and if you are interested in history of America this is a book that will leave and impression on you. If you want to see great photographs this book is for you, if you want to see them by great photographers than this book id definitely for you.

Sure their vision was a bit romantic, but anyone who appreciates what the FSA photographers, under Roy Stryker's direction, did will also appreciate this book. Never before and never since then (pace, Robert Frank) has the country sat for its portrait. It would have been nice to have the numbers in the Smithsonian's Prints and Photographs Department, where the pictures are kept. The nation may have sat for its portrait, but the pictures belong to you.

Un libro fundamental para entender una parte importante de la fotografía norteamericana.