Try to Keep Up

newsweek:

The U.S. National Archives’s Flickr account has a series of portraits of miners on their way to work in Richlands, Virginia, in 1974. This one was taken by photographer Jack Corn as part of the Documerica Project, where “the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hired freelance photographers to capture images relating to environmental problems, EPA activities, and everyday life in the 1970s.” nwk tumblr would like to add there is nothing particularly problematic about this man’s face.

Serious question: Does the government still hire freelancers to do this sort of thing? I hope so. I love seeing historical photos of everyday moments in society (e.g., Dorothea Lange’s Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration) and would be sad if no one is capturing the day-to-day moments of our time. Photos, videos, podcasts — heck, Instagram snapshots — I hope the Library of Congress will house something documentary-like from this era.