the deepot

J.R. Eyerman and the Drive in Movie


Not Being TherePhotography and photojournalism are in many ways simply a patch between those were there and those who were not. When an image ends up standing in for an event, experience or person, it can acquire iconic status and this is especially true for photos that got picked up by news outlets or shared as telling evidence of something that happened. One image comes to stand for thousands of others taken many thousands of times by thousands of people. Fast forward to today and there are so many more digital images of an event, a person, a place than there are people who were actually there. The visual record is gi-normous and growing so fast it needs increasing examination, research and understanding.  Archivists are overwhelmed. Archiving saves and sometimes contextualizes, but it does not explain. 

Credit Photo from the  British Library on Unsplash
Credit: Photo by Liam Edwards on Unsplash
Sometimes, there was only one person taking photos. J.R.Eyerman (1906-1985)  the photographer I am researching and learning about captured key moments of social change in Western American life in the 1950s and 1960s.  With expert knowledge of camera mechanics and an inventive approach, he commented on and exposed the movie industry, stories of change, and the experience of technological advancement, from newly built dams to the White Sands nuclear tests.  The ways in which he set up, framed and took photographs, coupled with his deeply professional approach and artful sense of humor, provided biting commentary on change in the Western United States.  

Credit: LIFE Photo Archive


The “A picture is a thousand words” idea, attributed to Syracuse Post-Standard newspaper editor Tess Flanders in 1911 drove the creation of the photo-based version of Life Magazine in 1936 and the widespread adoption of photography by other news and other outlets. Life Magazine alone had a total of 101 salaried photographers when it ceased publication in 1972.  It was the heyday of salaried photographers; now so many have to be freelance and for hire.  Sent on assignment but able to experiment with techniques and style as long as the images were news not just art, Life photographers, like their Magnum counterparts, defined photojournalism. As a staff photographer for Time-Life from 1942 to 1961, J.R. Eyerman once said “Pressing the button for LIFE magazines just made the world stand still.”