Lewis Hine
[Photographer, writer, and reformer, b. 1874, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, d. 1940, New York.]
The greatest advance in social work is to be made by the popularizing of camera work, so these records can be made by those who are in the thick of the battle.
(1909) 
The photograph has an added realism of its own; it has an inherent attraction not found in other forms of illustration. For this reason the average person believes implicitly that the photograph cannot falsify. Of course, you and I know that this unbounded faith in the integrity of the photograph is often rudely shaken, for, while photographs may not lie, liars may photograph. It becomes necessary, then, in our revelation of the truth, to see to it that the camera we depend on contracts no bad habits.
(1909)
From their ivory tower, how could [the photo-secessionists] see way down to the substrata of it all?
I have had all along, as you know, a conviction that my demonstration of the value of the photographic appeal can find its real fruition bet if it helps the workers to realize that they themselves can use it as a lever even tho it may not be the mainspring of the works...
(1910)
Whether it be a painting or photograph, the picture is a symbol that brings one immediately into close touch with reality. In fact, it is often more effective than the reality would have been, because, in the picture, the non-essential and conflicting interests have been eliminated.
