Documentary about documenting

If you are home tonight, or can set your TiVos, PBS will be airing an hourlong documentary titled “Documenting the Face of America: Roy Stryker and the F.S.A./O.W.I. Photographers.” According to the New York Times,

"The film shows how Mr. Stryker turned a small government agency’s New Deal project to document poverty into a visual anthology of thousands of images of American life in the 1930s and early ’40s that helped shape modern documentary photography; more than 160,000 are now at the Library of Congress."

The Library of Congress has been doing a great job of digitalizing these images and have posted many of them online. Since these photos are public, you can order prints from the Library of Congress at rock bottom prices. I have been meaning to order one of my favorite Walker Evans images, Bethlehem graveyard and steel mill for months now.

Thanks to my friend, and fellow photographer, Justin Mathews for the tip on the show!