"Ordinary Miracles - The Photo League's New York" - NYTimes.com A great passion fired up the Photo League, a group of mostly young New York photographers who, beginning in the 1930s and right up until the group's abrupt end in 1951, believed that they could change the world with their cameras and the righteousness of their own beliefs. The group's story - shaped by art and politics, some unexpected heroes and the period's usual lineup of red-baiting villains - is the subject of "Ordinary Miracles: The Photo League's New York," an alternately stirring and stolid documentary directed by Daniel Allentuck and Nina Rosenblum, and narrated by Campbell Scott. Gwathmey/Daedalus Productions The Photo League member Rosalie Gwathmey's "Shout Freedom" (1948), in a still from "Ordinary Miracles." The Photo League was started in 1936 by two friends, Sid Grossman and Sol Libsohn, who had belonged to another group, the Communist-backed Film and Photo League. One of the objectives of this second group, originally named the Workers Film and Photo League, was to produce newsreels of labor rallies and protests that some felt were not covered satisfactorily, if at all, in the mainstream press. As one writer of The Daily Worker put it, "the capitalist class knows that there are certain things that it cannot afford to have shown," adding, "It is afraid of some pictures." There's a good take on the Film and Photo League by Russell Campbell, available online in the archives of the journal Jump Cut. A similar belief in the power of the image drove Mr. Grossman (1913-1955), Mr. Libsohn (1914-2001) and many others who turned the Photo League into a national force. Some traveled only a few blocks to get to the league's Manhattan space; others arrived from elsewhere in the States and Europe. It's a breathtaking roster, for among those who joined or merely passed through, snapping and talking, were Paul Strand, Aaron Siskind, Lisette Model, Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin, Ansel Adams and that sui generis shutterbug, Weegee. One after another, they shared their art, ideas and ideologies in the streets where they worked, as well as in the bars and walk-ups where they played. It's a history the documentary relates in broad strokes and through photos, interviews and some overheated writing. It's a great, often inspiring story - even if it's not as thrilling as it might have been in a different, more developed and longer feature. This one comes in at an overly, sometimes awkwardly, compressed 75 minutes. "Ordinary Miracles" is extremely likable and has value as a historical document specifically because it includes snippets from a dozen later-life interviews with Photo League members like Rosalie Gwathmey and Mr. Engel. It's pretty wonderful to listen to these extraordinary artists, some of whom have since died, recall how they headed into New York's streets and discovered a world, although it's too bad that the visual quality of most of the interviews isn't better. These men and women clearly still have a lot to say, even if their photographs often seemed to say it all. Ordinary Miracles The Photo League's New York Produced and directed by Daniel Allentuck and Nina Rosenblum; written by Mr. Allentuck; narrated by Campbell Scott; directors of photography, Dejan Georgevich and Kenneth Ortiz; edited by Peter Maugeri, Russell Greene and Angelo Corrao; released by Daedalus Productions. At the Quad Cinema, 34 West 13th Street, Greenwich Village. Running time: 1 hour 15 minutes.