In a career that began with a $7.50 Voigtländer Brillant camera bought in a pawnshop, Gordon Parks was, above all, a storyteller. Self-taught, his work is responsive and exploratory, famously liberating the static model in his fashion photography, to create pictures that suggest movement and character. Parks began his career in earnest at the Farm Security Administration in the early 1940s. A New Deal government agency, established in response to the Great Depression, its photography department had a profound influence on documentary image-making and agency in the US. It is while training at the FSA that Parks produced one of his most significant images – take a look over gettyarchive to learn more. Having previously worked at the War Office of Information and freelanced at Vogue, Parks became the first African American staff photographer at LIFE magazine in 1948. Using his camera like a pen, lucidity informs Parks’ many essays across documentary, sports, fashion and entertainment, ou...