American
photographer Walker Evans' success was that his images appear to be
objective - they are the photographer's evaluations/interpretations
of the world before his eye. The paper points out the paradoxical nature of this argument--that Evans'
objective, realistic, "documentary" style is his own subjectivity. The paper looks at the context within which Evans was working -- specifically that of the 1930s Farm Security Administration. The paper shows that the images Evans made for "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" (which were included in the FSA file of photographs) serve as the culmination of Evans' talents, as well the utmost realistic portrayal of the conditions that the American tenant-farmer was subject to in the post-Depression 1930s.