Edwin Locke

Walker Evans

Photographer

American·b. 1903

Known for:

Depression-era documentary photography for the FSA; American Photographs (1938)

Education:

Williams College (one year); self-taught in photography

Walker Evans joined the Farm Security Administration in 1935, producing photographs of rural poverty in the American South that remain among the most lucid examples of documentary photography. His collaboration with James Agee - a summer spent with three Alabama sharecropper families in 1936 - was published as Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941). He later joined Fortune magazine as a staff photographer, a position he held from 1945 to 1965.

Walker Evans's Gear List(4)

Leica M2

Leica

Connection Source

Leica CameraWebsite

Connection note

Purchased Leica M2 Black Paint in 1962; used it until 1973

Product description

Leica's simplified M-mount rangefinder introduced in 1957, with a 0.72x magnification viewfinder showing 35mm, 50mm, and 90mm framelines. Omits the self-timer and film counter reset of the M3, making it a lighter and more affordable body. Favored by photojournalists for decades.

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Deardorff 8×10 View Camera

Deardorff

Connection Source

SurpluscameragearBook

Connection note

Evans used an 8x10 Deardorff view camera for his FSA documentary work; the large negative produced the precise, frontal compositions for which "American Photographs" (1938) is known.

Product description

Manufactured by L.F. Deardorff & Sons in Chicago from the 1920s through the 1980s, the 8×10 is a wooden field camera producing negatives 8 by 10 inches. Its bellows design allows for full front and rear movements including tilt, swing, and shift.

Polaroid SX-70

Polaroid

Connection Source

AnatomyfilmsBook

Connection note

In his final years, Evans used Polaroid SX-70 cameras extensively, producing thousands of instant photographs. Polaroid provided him with free cameras and film. Documented in "Walker Evans: Polaroids" (2002).

Product description

The Polaroid SX-70 system, introduced in 1972, was the first folding SLR instant camera with integral film that developed automatically after ejection. Its distinctive color palette and the ability to manipulate the emulsion while it developed made it a tool for both amateur and artistic photography.

Leica

Connection note

Purchased a Leica IIIc in March 1954; later acquired a Leica M2 in 1962

Product description

Leica screw-mount rangefinder introduced in 1940, the first Leica with a die-cast (rather than machined) body. Retains the L39 mount and dual shutter speed dials of earlier models. Production continued through 1951, including wartime units manufactured under difficult conditions in Wetzlar.