The Huffington Post

The Kansas-born artist began his career at the age of 25, inspired by images of Depression-era migrant workers he had first seen in magazines. With a Voigtlander Brillant camera under his arm, the budding photographer leapt into the field, landing in Chicago with his own portrait business specializing in photographs of society women. During this period, Parks would move from assignment to assignment, but a chronicle of the city’s South Side would win him a coveted fellowship with the Farm Security Administration of the United States.

Gordon Parks’s 100th Birthday: Celebrating The Groundbreaking American Photographer’s Work In Photos