At the same time, workers throughout the country were beginning to organize for better wages and working conditions. There was a growing movement among the economically oppressed to band together for solidarity and bargaining strength, and photographers were directly participating in these activities. Shortly before Group f / 64 was formed, Edward Weston went to a meeting of the John Reed Club, which was founded to support Marxist artists and writers. These circumstances not only helped set up the situation in which a group of like - minded friends decided to come together around a common interest, but they played a significant role in how they thought about their effort. Group f / 64 was more than a club of artists; they described themselves as engaged in a battle against a "tide of oppressive pictorialism '' and purposely called their defining proclamation a manifesto, with all the political overtones that the name implies.
group f/64 was a major backlash against the earlier photographic movement of
tide of oppressive pictorialism