Providing a unique view of American life during the Great Depression and Second World War, each Fields of Vision volume includes an introduction to the life of the photographer and 50 evocative images selected from their work. Carl Mydans was born in Boston in 1907 and earned a degree in journalism from Boston University in 1930.

In 1935 he joined the Resettlement Administration (which became the FSA) as a photographer. Mydans traveled in the South, documenting agricultural workers and rural poverty, and toured New England towns hard-hit by the Depression. His work was distinguished by his ability to tell an entire story in a single image. After sixteen months with the government, Mydans left to work at Life magazine, where he stayed until the magazine closed in the early 1970s. He died in 2004.