Baptism by Immersion

The photograph title is Baptism by Immersion by Marion Post Wolcott, 1940. Wolcott was born in New Jersey in 1910. Wolcott went to study photography with her sister Helen in Europe. This is where Wolcott witnessed the Nazi attacks on the Jewish population during the Great depression. Wolcott documented poverty and deprivation, where she joined the Farm Security Administration which was a program to help improve poverty and to do a rural rehabilitation. The FSA was well known for the influence of their photography program. Photographers and writers were hired to report and document the plight of the poor farmers.  Wolcott’s photography is memorable because she displayed the hardships of the Great Depression through her photography.

In my opinion Marion Wolcott is very inspirational. She took a very fragile subject (the Great Depression) and instead of hiding the truths of what she had seen, she displayed it through her photography. She put meaning to what was really happening during the time period. I enjoyed what she was doing by displaying the truths of the Great Depression, but I was not completely fascinated by the pictures themselves. Even though her pictures were there to express what was happening, they didn’t have much of an effect on me.  I’m not moved by them.