Discussion Topic: Photographing the Beginning of the Civil Rights Movement

I believe both photographs are very effective. What is different is the approach. I’m the kind of photographer who prefers to be unnoticed, take the picture and leave. I’ve noticed that any time you ask people for a photograph, they change their expression, and the photo it’s not natural, so it doesn’t work when you want to document something with pictures, for fashion photography it’s ok to make people pose. So in that way, Frank’s photographs are extremely effective when they come to portrait reality and the society of the time. I think it’s also very interesting because of the background of the photographer, when you come to a new city (specially NYC) or to a new country, you can find many crazy things, and a fresh eye is ideal to photograph all of these. The second photograph is also very effective, but because of the moment itself. Perhaps the photographer was lucky by getting that expression in Hazel’s face. I agree it’s a very good photograph, but the photographer (as a good news photographer) took advantage of the tension and chaos of that moment. I believe the drama of some events make things more acceptable, but when you shoot everyday living like Frank did, and you reveal nasty behaviors or things to be ashamed of (like racism), people just get crazy, because you are pointing the dirty spot in the laundry everybody accepts as clean.