Acknowledgments
Introduction: Seeing and Believing–Kerry Tremain
PHOTOGRAPHERS
Hansel Mieth: The Depression and the Early Days of Life
Walter Rosenblum: Lewis Hine, Paul Strand, and the Photo League
Michelle Vignes: Magnum Photo Agency: The Early Years
Wayne Miller: Word War II and the Family of Man
Peter Magubane: A Black Photographer in Apartheid South Africa
Matt Herron: The Civil Rights Movement and the Southern Documentary
Project
Jill Freedman: Resurrection City
Mary Ellen Mark: Streetwise Photographer
Earl Dotter: The United Mine Workers
Eugene Richards: Americans We
Susan Meiselas: Central America and Human Rights
Sebastião Salgado: Workers
Graciela Iturbide: The Indigenous of Mexico
Antonin Kratochvil: The Fall of the Iron Curtain
Donna Ferrato: Living with the Enemy: Domestic Violence
Joseph Rodriguez: In the Barrio
Dayanita Singh: A Truer India
Fazal Sheikh: Portrait of a Refugee
EDITORS AND CURATORS
Gifford Hampshire: The Environmental Protection Agency's Project
DOCUMERICA
Peter Howe: Life Magazine and Outtakes
Colin Jacobson: Independent Magazine and Reportage
Anne Wilkes Tucker: The Museum Context
Fred Ritchin: The Fish are Last to Know about the Water: The
Emerging Digital Revolution
IN THE FIELD
Ronald Partridge: Dorothea Lange in the Field
Don McCullin: Vietnam: The Battle of Hue, 1968
Bill Owens: Suburbia and a Passion for Seeing His World
Larry Fink: Social Graces
David Goldblatt: Once an Enemy: Apartheid and the New South
Africa
Maya Goded: Tierra Negra
Afterword: Witness in Our Time–Ken Light
Bibliography
Important Readings
Index
Ken Light is an internationally recognized documentary
photographer and the recipient of two National Endowment for the
Arts photography fellowships. The author of seven photo books,
including Delta Time, Texas Death Row, and Coal Hollow, he is a
full-time faculty member and director of the Center for Photography
at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of
California, Berkeley.
Kerry Tremain is a writer and editor. The former executive
editor of Mother Jones, he was a cofounder and director of the
International Fund for Documentary Photography.
From CHOICE
Light (Univ. of California, Berkeley) uses the phrase "a witness to
their time" to describe the social documentary photographers
highlighted in this outstanding narrative of the lives and works of
photographers, editors, and curators. This collection of interviews
with many of the most important social documentary photographers of
the late 20th century is an impressive work that records the joys
and perils of photographers who attempt to document the world
around them. Many of the photographers interviewed are not
well-known names, but their images resonate with times and places
that instantly will be recognizable to most readers. Only a single
image accompanies each narrative, but a quick search of the
Internet will bring many more images to light and reinforce the
importance of this remarkable collection. This second edition (1st
ed., 2000) would be excellent for a course on social documentary
photography and a great read for anyone interested in the inner
workings of the "mind's eye" of a documentary
photographer. Light is in his own right an exceptional social
documentary photographer, who has made an outstanding effort in
compiling this wonderful collection. Summing Up: Highly
recommended. Upper-level undergraduates and above; general
readers.--J. M. King, emeritus, University of Georgia
“Photography can change the world. If you have any doubts, read
this book. It will change your life.”—Brian Wallis, Chief Curator,
International Center of Photography
“Ken Light has managed to get very close to some of the greats in
photography: Wayne Miller, Peter Magubane, Susan Meiselas, among
others, and in the process created a document that is a guide for
all young people who search of the truth.”—Danny Lyon
“Seasoned pro, amateur, or fledgling photo-J school grad awash in
the newest technologies, it's worth reading Ken Light's classic
Witness in Our Time, which tells it like it is straight from the
mouths of the best there ever were.”—Jeffrey D. Smith, Director,
Contact Press Images
“For all of us who have complained about how tough things are in
these times (and who among us has not complained?), the voices in
this book remind us photojournalism and documentary photography
were never easy, not even for those included in this book who are
generally accepted as stars in the profession.”—Jim McNay, past
president of the National Press Photographers Association
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