Allie Mae Burroughs, Hale County, Alabama - Walker Evans (1936)

Extract

[...] Allie Mae Burroughs, Hale County, Alabama - Walker Evans (1936) The photograph studied, titled "Allie Mae Burroughs, Hale County, Alabama," is the work of American photographer Walker Evans. It is now preserved and exhibited at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New-York City. This portrayal is a gelatin silver print, with a tripod centimeters high and 20.4 centimeters wide, taken in 1936. In 1936, this photographer traveled to Alabama to capture the lives of sharecroppers in the Great Depression, commissioned by the government department of the Farm Security Administration. [...]

[...] The pieces of wood in the background contrast with the rigidity of her face. They look like a crumbling world, reminiscent of their poverty. Walker Evans was influenced by French photographer Eugène Aget. In fact, in a time of globalization, Walker Evans wanted to show the portraits and lives of people in the countryside, those we are not used to seeing in the media. We can link this photograph to the quote from Antoine Caudet in 1861 since, as he says, this is a copy : the photographer reproduces the portrait of a woman, but it is also acts of a copy since the device has copied what the photographer wanted to show. [...]

[...] We do not know her age, and many opinions are possible. Her hairstyle shows the sweat of her work, her smile shows her unfamiliarity with being photographed, and the absence of makeup and jewelry, especially earrings, is a testament to her social and economic situation. Her neck and the positioning of her shoulders seem to be at ease, while her forehead, eyebrows and lips show great rigidity. The pallor of her face also contrasts with the blackness of her hair, and the shadows of the sticks in the background. [...]