Reverse Engineering Photogrammer

Photogrammar compiles a collection of nearly 90,000 photographs from the Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information (FSA – OWI). These photographs were taken throughout the years 1935-1946 and include photos of farming communities throughout various regions of the United States.

Photogrammar presents the photos amongst several mediums; a map, of which a user can explore various locations of a photo, a treemap, where the user can browse the collection by keywords that group similar photos together, and a metadata dashboard, which displays the photos on a map and groups them by location, date and relationship between subjects within the photos.

When President Roosevelt’s Resettlement Administration received great criticism, the FSA-OWI set out to document the success and relief that the Act brought to farmers. The photos that are compiled date back The Great Depression and extend to the end of World War II. The entire project was the largest government funded project that the FSA-OWI had ever undertaken.

When utilizing the map to discover photos, the user can choose between “dots” or counties. Dots displays locations on the map where specific photographers’ photos were taken. I believe counties offers a more expansive and insightful view of the project, however. Counties displays a map of the United States, the user can then click on a county and view all photos in the database from the selected location. When viewing the photos, one can gain an intuitive feeling for the hardships that the individuals underwent. Some of the most telling photos included crowds enjoying their favorite past times. It is not difficult to recognize the great disparity between pastimes in 2016 and pastimes in the late 1930s. For example, here is a photo of a crowd lined up in front of a ticket office for a rodeo show, whereas today one might see intensely larger crowds lined up at a venue such as the Staples Center to see a basketball game.

Another thing to note is the progression of technology as you browse photos taken at the beginning of the project and photos taken towards the end. At the beginning, photos were largely black and white whereas photos taken in later years begin to show greater color and detail.

In addition to a browse by location feature, Photogrammar also includes a search engine where a user may manually enter a keyword for a photo and the website will return all photos that contain subjects or objects attributed to that keyword. For instance, if I search the word “horse” the search engine will display all photos that are either of a horse, or contain horses within the picture. The user-interface for the search engine is slightly overwhelming at first-glance, however. The search feature is not actually hard to use, therefore I would recommend they hide the advanced search features until the user actually requests them in order to maintain a clean interface.

All in all, I do believe that the project does a good job of directing researchers to a large database of photographs they may be looking for. The advanced photo subject/geolocation/photographer tagging that the team implemented makes finding specific photos very easy to find and gives users a real feel for what life may have been like throughout the implementation of the Resettlement Act.