Walker Evans was born in 1903 in St. Louis and died at the age of 72. Evans grew up in a middle western family and went to private school before attending Williams College for only 1 year. He initially wanted to be a writer but found his love for photography while visiting France. He was particularly interested in architecture and went to many places to capture photos of his findings.
Style
Evans liked to take pictures of architecture and everyday objects that were rarely photographed. He used his camera to portray deeper meaning in things such as a city street. These photographs were many times meant to show a vision of America. During the depression, he would photograph the hardships people faced with no money. He truly cared about sending a message through his work and opening peoples eyes to the things around them.
Philosophy
Evans believed that staring was the way to educate your eye. Watching, listening, and others were ways to gain knowledge and continue learning from other people. His photography shows that he is also trying to educate people on what is going on around them. He wants people to see what he sees and spread awareness of the problems surrounding them. Evans once told an interviewer that America made him nauseous, which probably led him to educate people through photography.
Influences
I was amazed how Evans could take the simplest, everyday things and turn them into meaningful photography. When taking pictures in the past, I usually tried to take them of something cool or unique that would look good in the picture. After seeing Evan's work, I see that you can make art out of anything. I also love that he used his photos to spread the truth about things in America at the time such as how people lived during the depression.
Compare and Contrast
Theater (Evans)
State Theatre
This photo represents similarities between time now and then. I think it is very interesting that there are still theaters running today just how they were in the past. Both angles of these photos show people walking on the streets, but I couldn't completely replicate it because of the time of day and number of people in front of the theatre.
Bucket Seat (Evans)
Futuristic Ride
This photo represents how far we have come as a society and the innovations made since the first cars. The angle of these photos shows the whole of each car and the dramatic differences between the two. I attempted to show the headlights and wheels of each car to truly show how much time has changed vehicles.
Garage, Atlanta, Georgia (Evans)
Auto Parts
This photo was hardest to recreate because garage work stores are very different than they were before. In my picture, the garage work store doesn't have anything outside and does all work inside. There are also many different services offered in today's garage part stores.
Artist Statement
I enjoyed taking these photos. I struggled to find good photos from Evans because of the style of his photography. He wanted to portray America through photography which included many photos of people in poverty. Obviously, that would be hard and probably disrespectful to recreate today so I had to choose photos to take of buildings and cars. Although I didn't take photos of the negatives in American culture, Evans tried to show that in his photography. Instead, I chose to take photos that compared life in the two times.