One of America’s finest social documentary photographers, Milton Rogovin, is celebrating his 100th birthday today - Happy Birthday!

Rogovin’s career and work is remarkable in more ways than just one. For example, he would have never qualified for any of those grants for “emerging” artists under 35 or 30 (or whatever other arbitrary age limit people use), since he picked up the camera when he was at an age when other photographers think about putting together a retrospective. He started writing poetry to go along his images when he was almost 90.

WBFO has a nice podcast about his life here.

There are various shows across the country celebrating his work. For example, there’s one at Seattle’s Henry Art Gallery (until April 25, 2010). In New York, you can go to Danziger Projects (that show is only up until January 16, 2010).