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Anyone who has studied photography will have come across the work of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) in the United States during the 1930s.

The FSA was a government programme that documented the work of the Resettlement Administration at a time of severe depression, one that had driven many farmers and small-holders into poverty.

Roy Stryker was appointed head of the historical section and tasked with reporting and publicising the agency's work.

His team included names which now read like a Who's Who of photography: Carl Mydans, , Arthur Rothstein, Russell Lee and, of course, Dorothea Lange.

The process was fairly simple: the photographers would be sent out to rural communities, sometime for months at a time, with detailed shootings lists produced by Stryker. The result was a collection of about . It could have been more but, in the early days of the project, Stryker would punch a hole through the less successful images.

The reason I'm mentioning these pictures is that the recently released a .

Much has been written on many of these photos: Dorothea Lange's is one of the best-known pictures from the last century, and Walker Evans' vernacular style influenced generations of photographers.

Each picture in the collection helped to shape the development of photojournalism, which for the following decades took a humanitarian view and attempted to use pictures to influence world opinion.

The style faded with time and became somewhat discredited as presenting little more than the view of the photographer - of an outsider who forces his or her beliefs onto a situation. To counter this, many photojournalists and documentary photographers began to seek ways in which to place themselves at the scene, to show that the photographic representation of the subject did not spring to life from thin air, but was a conscious decision on their part to portray one moment rather than another.

One obvious example of this was the work of , who often included his own shadow in his pictures to emphasis his presence; others have used intense colours to add an unreal feel to the prints, saying that the image is not reality, just a representation of it.

Whether this is a better approach, I'll leave you to decide; personally, I think there are times when it works well, and others when a more traditional view might be appropriate, but perhaps that's just me sitting on the fence.

Either way, this set of pictures from the Library of Congress stands detailed examination, as do the stories behind the frames. Lange's picture alone is enough for a long essay as it involves manipulation (a thumb was removed from the picture), was possibly posed and the story obtained from the subject (later revealed to be ) was not as detailed as it might have been.

What is undeniable is that the work produced by this small band of photographers gives us an invaluable record of life in part of the United States, a country about to enter a world war and change forever.

It could be argued that it's a fictional view - one that fails to show the despair and instead focuses on the strength and dignity of those pictured - but in the end, their aim was to record and publicise the work of a government programme and that is a goal they met admirably.

Now, 70 years on, they are as remarkable as they were when first produced and set the benchmark for social photography for years to come.

So pour yourself a coffee and really : it'll be time well spent.

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