It would have been had the photographer made a lot of money off of the images, for instance.
He didn't. He was an art professor for most of his life- certainly did not significantly profit off of his art.
He interacted with the subjects and sent prints to them after the fact.
Would it be better if shocking poverty is not photographed?
Look at the guy lounging with his back to the car or the guy with his back to the tree in [1]. Can you imagine trying to tell them they are being exploited?
Or that the photo of the girl in [2] isn't a stunningly beautiful image?
And once needs to be careful considering poverty and the date these pics were taken. These people look well dressed, and the couple kissing clearly have jobs (see the hard hat hanging up). I had cousins who grew up in the 1980 in conditions that weren't massively different to this and we never considered them poor at all.
Or consider this: Are the pics in [3] of 1980's SF more of less exploitative?
[1] https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/bee576fea518043e1164ded4f42ca...
[2] https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/802853306d66c60d2e1dedb8ec2e2...
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/30/public-matters...
The faces are fascinating, there are entire stories in the faces.
It’s nostalgic for me. Showing the conditions people live in isn’t necessarily exploiting them. Some of these people look very happy—take joy in their joy being captured and seen by hundreds of thousands of people decades later.
Even now, venture to mountainous regions of West Virginia and you can still find households without electricity or running water.
I think in this modern times people assume all such folks want those amenities, but are too poor to afford them, when really some of them couldn't be any happier to live as they do.
Maybe they wanted to be remembered? For people to see the truth of who they are, where they are?
It was used during the depression as part of the WPA activity to document the conditions of migrant workers and displaced people in the dustbowl.
It has been used consistently by primarily left wing parties to document social conditions as part of their campaigns for political change.
"art" is a label. So is "agitprop". -If it was shot as "agitprop" but became "art" or it was shot as "art" and became "agitprop" does it really alter anything here?
Diane Arbus was I think looking for the extreme in the social condition and individuals as "types".
https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/chris_killip/
https://www.magnumphotos.com/arts-culture/society-arts-cultu...
A famous example is photography of the Five Points slums in New York [1] that led to significant changes in the city.
[1] https://allthatsinteresting.com/jacob-riis-photographs-how-t...
Why put the word art in quotes? We actually have one of our two political parties trumpeting about being anti-woke, and billionaires decrying "woke" as an evil mind virus to their legion of devoted followers.
Woke candy, woke railroads, woke banks.
Billionaires will be billionaires. Ordinary people will take photographs of people living their lives, exploitation may arise, if the purpose is to demean the subject and denigrate their life, their culture or circumstances. It appears as though that did not happen in this case.
Surely you can grant that some things that exist are exploitative. Your reasoning here amounts to exploitation not existing. Documenting something that exist (which is just documenting) can be exploitative.
For the record, White Supremacy ideologies ARE how they got to the state put in the photos - but that doesn't mean that the people currently in charge are all neonazis. We don't apply that logic to NY state government w/r/t NYCHA or Newburgh or Far Rockaway, and we should extend that courtesy to people like Nikki Haley.
If you go to Today's Russia or Ukraine, you will find very similar conditions, often captured by wealthier European photographers. Are they being exploitative, are they documenting. It depends on the photographer and how they approach it. You can still grant the subject respect and decency.