Ive read this entire interview and found it really interesting. Ive copied a snippit here. I though to look up this interview and others after the lecture from FAKEID. I used this part of the interview as I like how he describes the method behind his photography.
http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/transcripts/shahn64.h
RICHARD DOUD: Yes, I think, from what I've seen of the Farm Security Photographs this was pretty much the general idea they had.
BEN SHAHN: I would say so.
RICHARD DOUD: They were concerned with...
BEN SHAHN: I was quite a purist about it and when some of the people came in and began to use flash I thought it was immoral. I'll give you a reason why. You know, you come into a sharecropper's cabin and it's dark. But a flash destroyed that darkness. It is true that a flash would actually illuminate the comic papers that they used to paste on their walls, but this wasn't the impact it had on me. It was the darkness, the glistening of the eyes, the glistening of a brass ornament on top of a big bed, you know, a glass, a mirror that would catch light. I wanted very much to hold on to this, you see. Now, that's a matter of personal judgement about this thing whether you divulge everything or whether things are kept mysterious as they are viewed.
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