The manipulation of photographic images discussed in "The Tradition: Fact and Fiction" by Robert Coles

In his essay "The Tradition: Fact and Fiction" Robert Coles discussed the works of two photographers, Jane Lange and Walker Evans, examining the process of producing their pictures and the artistic decisions they made, the meaning they wanted to convey and the history of their photographs. Coles pitches on two of Lange's famous photographs. The first, the image of the "migrant mother," depicts a poor woman and her two children, dressed in rags and holding …

…large hat. Although with a greater artistic value, these four photographs were not used by Evans because they do not show what they are supposed to - labor in general, the faceless worker. If his task were to depict just the cotton field, he could have chosen one of the pictures with the girl standing; if he had to illustrate a report about a poor harvest, the photographer could have picked out the third picture.