Walker Evans
“The Beauty of the Common Tool”
“Among low-priced, factory-produced goos, none is so appealing to the senses as the ordinary hand tool. Hence, a hardware store is a kind of offbeat museum show for the man who responds to good, clear ‘undesigned’ forms.”
– Walker Evans
After beginning photography in the 1920’s, he published his first photos in the 1930’s. Evan’s was best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration and capturing images of Great Depression.
Whilst working at at Fortune magazine, Evans produced an array of photos named Beauties of the Common Tool,” which was displayed in the July 1955 issue.
Much of Evans’ work from the FSA period uses the large format, 8×10-inch view camera. The variety of objects consisted of:
1- a reamer 2- an awl 3- a bill hook 4- an auger 5- various pliers 6- T-squares 7- wrenches
The main way that Walker Evans photographed his objects is with them above a blank background. He also elevated the objects with something underneath, this helped to create a heightened effect and prevent a shadow from happening.
Here is my interpretation of Walker Evan’s Work
I turned this image from coloured to black and white to match Walker Evans. Whilst editing I paid close attention to Walker Evan’s ideology of ‘The Beauty of the Common Tool’ and how it could influence my work.
I think to improve this photography I could take more photos of the same angle that he did. This would make my photos look even more like his. Another thing Evan’s did was elevate the object to avoid a shadow, in this image there is a shadow. To improve I am going to do this with my object.
I then did another photoshoot and focussed on taking the object photos from above and elevating the object to avoid the shadow. I think this really made my object photos look like Walker Evans’s work of ‘The Beauty of the Common Tool’.
Darren Harvey- Regan
After Walker Evan’s July 1955 issue was released, Harvey-Regan first constructed a montage of Evans’s images to make new forms.
Walker Evan’s work truly inspired Darren Harvey- Regan and helped him to become the photographer that he has become. He took Walker Evans’ work and montaged it into an array of combined images.
The montaged tools that Darren used were shown to become both beautiful and bizarre objects.
The odd yet unique objects consisted of items such as:
- Scissors
- Ratchet Wrench
- Pliers
“It’s a means of transposing material into other material, adding new meaning or thoughts in the process. I think photographing materials is a way to consider the means of creating meaning, and it’s a tactile process with which I feel involved. Touching and moving and making are my engagement with the world and my art”. Darren Harvey- Regan.
Darren Harvey Regan claims he is interested in the concept that photographs do not exist just to show things, but are physical things that become objects themselves. – This is what introduces the idea of appreciation of one object.
I attempted to take this photo to represent formalism in a different form that is different from Darren Harvey Regan’s interpretation however, this image ended up being very over exposed and incorrectly taken. This resulted in a blurry and dark image that I cannot edit or improve.