Abstract
Walker Evans (1903-1975) is often said to the best American documentary photographer of the century. His most important and famous work was his depiction of American rural life during the Great Depression. Commissioned by the Farm Security Administration (FSA) in 1935, he meticulously documented the life of the rural poor in Southern States in the midst of the economic and social crisis. Forty years later, Richard Avedon (1923-2004) embarked upon a six-year project during which he travelled through the American West, camera in hand, aspiring to depict the life of simple and poverty-stricken people and to show how desperate American countryside people were, far removed from the White House or from Hollywood. Both photographers dedicated an important part of their life to travels through the American countryside and portrayed an endangered America. Both used photography, and unexpectedly the same camera, an 8 x 10 Camera as a medium to express their concern. However, I will show in this paper that a careful comparison of their works demonstrates how different they were, not only in their methods and techniques, but also in their conception of photography: while Evans photographed artifacts, objects and places, following the tradition of documentary photography, Avedon photographed people, in the tradition of fashion photography. Therefore I will show how they achieved their common goal in different ways.
