Leadership, Policy, And Change Beyond The Darkroom ...

Evan Nicole Bell Professor Schewel 15 December 2016 Leadership, Policy, and Change Beyond the Darkroom: Documentary Photography as a Tool for Social Change Can one series of photos make a difference? While many may doubt the power of a group of images possess to engender social change, thousands of social movements, federal policies, and personal revolutions have begun with and been supported by the click of a shutter. From the Great Depression-era of the 1920s to the modern day Black Lives Matter movement, photography has been used strategically by both the federal government and community organizers to shed light on systemic issues such as homelessness, poverty, child labor, racism, and hazardous working conditions. Lewis Hine, a photographer hired by the National Child Labor Committee, exposed the somber working conditions facing America’s youth, resulting in a wave of support for federal child labor regulations in the U.S. (Cade, 2013). Gordon Parks’ photos of black Americans from the 1940s to the 1970s made the struggle against racism relatable to TIME Magazine’s mostly white readers (Mason, 2016). Dorothea Lange’s photos of migrant workers and fa milies humanized the consequences of the Great Depression and invoked the government to provide aid against starvation (Taylor, 2014). While each of these circumstances are very different, they all share one common thread: change was achieved by following a single topic or story in-depth over time. Through bringing the stories