TUCSON.- The Center for Creative Photography presents the exhibit of photographs by Milton Rogovin through October 1. Social documentary photographer Milton Rogovin, now 96 years old, has been likened to the great social documentary photographers of the 19th and 20th centuries, Lewis Hine and Jacob Riis. His work speaks of the humanity of working people, the poor and the forgotten ones.

Rogovin started work as an optometrist after military service during World War II. He was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952, and, after refusing to testify, was dubbed "Buffalo's Number One Communist" by the local newspaper. The persecution that followed significantly impacted his business. His political voice silenced, Rogovin turned to photography as a way to speak about social inequities. In 1958, he picked up his camera and began to capture images that communicated his deep desire for a more just and equal society.

Refusing to be silenced by the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s, Mr. Rogovin turned to photography in his quest for social justice. A champion of the working class, Milton Rogovin (born 1909) has photographed people around the world for the past 40 years, focusing on men and women at work and in their homes. His dignified portraits of workers speak of the dreams and aspirations common to humanity.

Influenced by the work of Lewis Hine and Paul Strand, Mr. Rogovin began his interest in photography by documenting Buffalo's African American storefront churches. He captured the transitory nature of the buildings used for religious services and the emotion of the church services. Later photographs document working-class individuals in a six-block neighborhood of Buffalo's lower west side, home to Puerto Ricans, African Americans, Native Americans and other ethnic groups. He began this series in 1972, and rephotographed many of the same people in 1984 and again in 1992, providing a portrait of families over time. In addition, he has documented Native Americans on reservations in New York state, an around-the-world survey of miners and their families, steelworkers before and after plant closings, teenage pregnancy, and the Yemeni community of Lackawanna, N.Y.

Mr. Rogovin is a recipient of the prestigious W. Eugene Smith Award for humanistic photography. His photographs have appeared in dozens of periodicals, such as The New York Times Magazine, Photographers International, Aperture and Creative Camera. Mr. Rogovin's work has been published in several monographs, including The Forgotten Ones, Windows That Open Inward: Images of Chile, with poems by Nobel Prize winner Pablo Neruda; Portraits in Steel, with interviews by Michael Frisch, and Triptychs: Buffalo's Lower West Side Revisited. His work is in the collections of more than 20 institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House and the J. Paul Getty Center. Mr. Rogovin's photographs have been widely exhibited, including one-man shows at the Albright-Knox Gallery (Buffalo), the Art Institute of Chicago, the Brooklyn Museum and the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.