Facing Change Collective and the Library of Congress to Cooperate

Anthony Suau Russell Lee
Russell Lee / FSA / Library of Congress
Russell Lee's photograph of men saying grace before a barbeque dinner at the New Mexico fair. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940, which Suau chose as an example of what inspires him about the work of the FSA photographers. "Oddly enough," he says, "as primarily a black and white photographer, I chose a color photograph, first of all because I simply love this image but also as a sentimental tribute to my newly lost old friend, Kodachrome."

Earlier today, the Facing Change Collective of Photographers announced a deal with the Library of Congress to cooperate on the development of the photography produced by the collective. Founded by Pulitzer-prize winning photographers Anthony Suau and Lucian Perkins, Facing Change also incorporates work from Stanley Greene, Alan Chin, Brenda Ann Kenneally, Carlos Javier Ortiz, David Burnett, Debby Flemming Caffery, Danny Wilcox Frazier and Andrew Lichtenstein. The inspiration for the deal came from the fact that the Library of Congress is the repository of the work produced by the photographers of the Farm Service Administration.  Inspired by that work, the photographers of Facing Change set out to provide a record of what America looks like today, as it faces a new kind of economic uncertainty.

In honor of the signing of the deal, LightBox asked each of the photographers of the Facing Change collective to choose a photograph from the original FSA archive, and discuss how it has influenced their own work. In the first installment of what will be an ongoing series, Anthony Suau describes his passion for a photo by Russell Lee.

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