Walker Evans and James Agee were one of those rare men who took a hard truth to accept and that we tried our best to ignore and asked us to look at a photograph that appeared ordinary and to look deeper beyond its face value. What he showed us was a picture that unveiled an unconscious living history of the people who lived during the era of the Great Depression and exposed them to the reality they had blinded themselves to. Evans the photographer, was able to spoon feed people into thinking they were looking at something tame or safe, and they would be lured in and willing to perhaps study the photograph. There was something strange about the photograph. The message and story behind that one oddity was actually an unsettling truth. He was able to camouflage his message and hide what he was really trying to say. For instance in his photograph portraying the row of four pairs of shoes and the one black pair beneath the painted image of a shoe with the word “SHINE” boldly written in neat font. Baldwin Lee, Evans’s former apprentice, told of the irony in this photograph. Not only is the word shine a derogatory for a black person, but the light above this work area is unlit. It is consistency of this sight that we must grant the moment of pause to consider the lesson of the master. He pointed out the inequalities suffered by the blacks in the South. It might have even been an overtly obvious fact, but so rare a light was ever shined on this aspect of society at the time. A person might be content to live in ignorance. But any moral being exposed to the light and error of their ways must right the transgression and see to it that others alter course.
Sources: http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Evans_Walker.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/shine
http://www.agallery.com/pages/photographers/photos/wevans/WEShoeShineSignLO.jpg
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