Conclusion – draft

Both photographers include family – in Walker Evans’ image you can clearly see the family of five standing together on the porch, and in Latoya Ruby’s image you can see a grandmother and her granddaughter. When it comes to the contexts of their images, they are similar in the way in which they both look at the effect of economic downfall on families. Evans was exploring the effect of the Great Depression on families within small communities, while Ruby was looking at her own family in the time of racism and economic downfall in her home town of Braddock, Pennsylvania. They also show the importance of family in dire situations, with each of them photographing families which seem to have strong relationships in times which were socially and financially difficult for them. However it is different in the way which while Evans was looking at multiple families and how they were effected by a country-wide event, Ruby was only looking at the effects of economic downfall in her small hometown, and her own family. As Latoya Ruby was looking at her own family, she had more of a connection with those who she was photographing and knew them well, so she could shape her photographs to suit their personalities, lives, ect, whereas Walker Evans didn’t know the families personally and did not have that connection, so he may not have been able to take images which truly reflect who these people are. When it comes to each of them as individuals, there are differences between the two which could effect the way they take their images and look at the events which they are documenting, such as the fact that Frazier is a woman and Evans is a man, so they would each look at the events in different ways – through a man’s point of view and a woman’s point of view. By investigating these two artists they have inspired and influenced my work greatly by showing me ways of approaching my chosen theme of family, such as taking candid images of them within their own homes or out socialising. Latoya Ruby Frazier was able to portray the importance of family through the use of exploring her own family members and taking images of them during a time of financial downfall and racism within her community, and Walker Evans was able to show this by taking images of three families who were just pulling through during the Great Depression.

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