Walker Evans at work: 745 photographs together with documents selected from letters, memoranda, interviews, notes

by Jerry L. Thompson

Through the evidence of trial and error in successive images and through his own word's, this book shows how Hunter Evans worked. The 747 photographs document chronologically his choice of subject and his lifelong technical experimentation.

Genres: Photography, Art and Photography

239 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Jerry L. Thompson is a working photographer who occasionally writes about photography. During the last three years of Walker Evans’s life he was Evans’s principal assistant and, for a time, printer of photographs. He lived with Evans off and on from late 1972 until Evans’s death in April 1975. From 1973 until 1980 he was a member of the faculty of Yale University. Thompson has also written The Last Years of Walker Evans; a book of essays, Truth and Photography; and the introduction to Walker Evans at Work. He lives in Amenia, New York.

Reviews

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Walker Evans is not a well-known name, but I would guess that most people have seen some of his photographs. I ran across his name in another book in which there was a showing of his work. So I turned to the internet and discovered that I was familiar with some of his work. This particular book would be of more interest to photographers as they would understand the technical aspects of his work. I know nothing about photography, still, I enjoyed seeing some of Evans work and reading notes he made concerning it. He was a photographer for Fortune magazine for twenty years, but his recognizable pieces are the result of documenting the results of the depression for the U.S. Farm Security department. Evans was an innovator when it came to photography. He said he always took four or five shots, often with different cameras. And he never destroyed negatives that he thought were failures, because it showed him what was wrong. There is an interesting segment on YouTube where he narrates some of his work. Check it out if you are interested. Walker Evans in His Own Words on YouTube, (4:37), J. Paul Getty Museum

[Molaan Mosell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an incredible book. Very unique. Not only does it show an incredible variety of his photographs, but it shows the original multiple shots of a subject and the editing / cropping that he experimented with. I loved it and did not want to return it to the library.

[Davy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fills a gap in the existing scholarship on the famous photographer, that of his technical routines and strategies, the basic mechanics of his work. Reading this, one gets a feel for how he planned his excursions, how he carried them out, and how he later organized and archived the results. Interesting, but perhaps not essential for most casual readers, or those who wish simply to engage the pictures on their own terms.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

When it comes to photography, quantity does not trump quality.