Dorothea Lange A Photographer Of The Past Analysis
Dorothea Lange: A Photographer of the Past “I realize more and more what it takes to be a really good photographer. You go in over your head, not just up to your neck.” This was said by Dorothea Lange, and what a smart lady she was! Dorothea Lange was a well-known documentary photographer and photojournalist during The Great Depression. The picture she is famous for is “Migrant Mother” and others showing the troubling times during the Depression-era (Partridge). One of two events that had an effect on Lange was her father abandoning her when she was twelve years old. The second event was when she was diagnosed with polio at age seven. The polio had left Lange with weakened right leg and a permanent limp. Lange had said, “It (the limp)
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formed me, guided me, instructed me, helped me and humiliated me. I’ve never gotten over it, and I am aware of the force and power of it.” To say the least, she was self-conscious of herself, like most girls are at that age (Wikipedia, 2012). To make her mother happy, Lange attended New York Training School for Teachers but this never detoured Dorothea from learning photographer. After classes during the day, she would go to Arnold Genthe’s studio and work under him (Partridge). In 1918, Lange decided to start a new chapter in her life when she moved to San Francisco and the next year she opened her own successful portrait studio. Two years after moving to San Francisco, she married a western painter, Maynard Dixon. Together, the couple had two sons; one, Daniel Dixon, was born in 1925, and the second, John Dixon, was born in 1929(Wikipedia, 2012). As the Great Depression loomed ahead, Lange decided there were more important images and moments to capture and started taking pictures of people in the streets. The local photographers were attracted to Lange’s studies of unemployed and homeless people. This led to getting employed at the federal Resettlement Administration or later called the Farm Security Administration. Dorothea had realized by the December of 1935 she was unhappy with her husband, Maynard Dixon, and divorced him. Then, in the same month, she married the economist Paul Schuster Taylor, who was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Lange had learned social and political matters from her new husband. Together, over the next five years, they documented the rural poverty and mistreatment of sharecroppers and migrant laborers. Taylor asked the questions and gathered the data, and Dorothea took the photos (Wikipedia, 2012). In most U.S. History textbooks, the picture that always seems to appear in the chapter on the 1930’s and Depression-era is Dorothea Lange’s “Migrant Mother.” It is a picture of a mother, Florence Owens Thompson, with her children looking away. When I looked at this picture, I thought the mother was trying to think of where the next meal is going to come from. It turns out I wasn’t even half right. The image portrayed the strength and need of the migrant workers (Wikipedia, 2012). The photograph “Migrant Mother” joined John Steinbeck 's novel The Grapes of Wrath inspiring the morality of the country to the dilemma of the so-called "Okies," desperate refugees from rural poverty in the Southwest, and their problems of joblessness, poor housing, and inadequate food when they finally reached the Golden State of California (Matthews, 2000). After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Dorothea turned down a fellowship with the Guggenheim and went to take pictures of the Japanese Americans relocating to camps. Another photograph that had significance was the image of Japanese-American children facing the flag and saying the pledge of allegiance just shortly before they were sent to internment camps. This was a reminder of confining people without charging them with any crime or chance to appeal (Wikipedia, 2012).
In 1952, Lange co-founded the photographic magazine Aperture. Lange was appointed in the mid-1950s to shoot a photographic documentary for Life magazine of the death of Monticello, California. The magazine did not run the piece, so Lange devoted one whole issue of Aperture to the work. The photo collection was shown at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1960 (Wikipedia, 2012).
In the last two decades of her life, Lange 's health was poor. She was finally was laid in the arms of God on October 11, 1965, at age 70, because of esophageal cancer (Wikipedia, 2012).
While researching Dorothea Lange, I realized a couple of things.
One, I have never realized how just one photograph can stop a moment in time. Freeze all emotions, actions, and thoughts. To be able to do that is a real special talent. And if the picture is a good picture, a person is able to guess what the person(s) is feeling, saying, and thinking in the photo. And the other realization I made was when you look at an old picture you start to feel nostalgic and filled with wonder. A wonder that takes you into the photograph’s world and gives you a taste of what the time period was like. A good picture, in my opinion, should tell a story. And most pictures do that because the photographer is telling the story of their life through the pictures they take. At the beginning of this term, I was very confused and didn’t have a clue on what to do or what to take pictures of. I continued to be confused and nervous when I developed my first roll of film, when I made my first proof/contact sheet, and when I made my first picture. Slowly everything I learned from this class and what I knew previously came together; I became more confident as the term progressed. So confident, I was asked to help other students make proof sheets and pictures. With wanting to go into the photographing world, this class helped me recognize what a good picture and photographer needs to become successful. The process of winding film, developing film, creating test strips, and finally, printing the image is a long process to say the least. I feel grateful with the technology we do have; for example, digital cameras, memory cards, photo printers at
Wal-Mart.
Famous Photographs by Dorothea Lange
Title: Migrant Mother
Date/Time: February of 1936
Title: Migrant Mother II
Date/Time: August 17, 1936
Where: Blythe, California
Title: ‘If You Die, You’re Dead –That’s All’
Date/Time: June of 1938
Where: Childress, Texas
Works Cited
1.) Partridge, E. Restless Spirit: The Life and Work of Dorothea Lange. New York: Viking.
2.)Wikipedia. (2012, October 6). Dorothea Lange. Retrieved October 5, 2012, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothea_Lange
3.) Matthews, G. (2000, December 1). SIRS: Lange, Dorothea. Retrieved October 7, 2012, from SIRS Issues Researcher: http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=SKEY045-0-7910&artno=0000281359&type=ART&shfilter=U&key=Dorothea%20lange&title=Lange%2C%20Dorothea&res=Y&ren=N&gov=N&lnk=N&ic=N
formed me, guided me, instructed me, helped me and humiliated me. I’ve never gotten over it, and I am aware of the force and power of it.” To say the least, she was self-conscious of herself, like most girls are at that age (Wikipedia, 2012). To make her mother happy, Lange attended New York Training School for Teachers but this never detoured Dorothea from learning photographer. After classes during the day, she would go to Arnold Genthe’s studio and work under him (Partridge). In 1918, Lange decided to start a new chapter in her life when she moved to San Francisco and the next year she opened her own successful portrait studio. Two years after moving to San Francisco, she married a western painter, Maynard Dixon. Together, the couple had two sons; one, Daniel Dixon, was born in 1925, and the second, John Dixon, was born in 1929(Wikipedia, 2012). As the Great Depression loomed ahead, Lange decided there were more important images and moments to capture and started taking pictures of people in the streets. The local photographers were attracted to Lange’s studies of unemployed and homeless people. This led to getting employed at the federal Resettlement Administration or later called the Farm Security Administration. Dorothea had realized by the December of 1935 she was unhappy with her husband, Maynard Dixon, and divorced him. Then, in the same month, she married the economist Paul Schuster Taylor, who was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Lange had learned social and political matters from her new husband. Together, over the next five years, they documented the rural poverty and mistreatment of sharecroppers and migrant laborers. Taylor asked the questions and gathered the data, and Dorothea took the photos (Wikipedia, 2012). In most U.S. History textbooks, the picture that always seems to appear in the chapter on the 1930’s and Depression-era is Dorothea Lange’s “Migrant Mother.” It is a picture of a mother, Florence Owens Thompson, with her children looking away. When I looked at this picture, I thought the mother was trying to think of where the next meal is going to come from. It turns out I wasn’t even half right. The image portrayed the strength and need of the migrant workers (Wikipedia, 2012). The photograph “Migrant Mother” joined John Steinbeck 's novel The Grapes of Wrath inspiring the morality of the country to the dilemma of the so-called "Okies," desperate refugees from rural poverty in the Southwest, and their problems of joblessness, poor housing, and inadequate food when they finally reached the Golden State of California (Matthews, 2000). After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Dorothea turned down a fellowship with the Guggenheim and went to take pictures of the Japanese Americans relocating to camps. Another photograph that had significance was the image of Japanese-American children facing the flag and saying the pledge of allegiance just shortly before they were sent to internment camps. This was a reminder of confining people without charging them with any crime or chance to appeal (Wikipedia, 2012).
In 1952, Lange co-founded the photographic magazine Aperture. Lange was appointed in the mid-1950s to shoot a photographic documentary for Life magazine of the death of Monticello, California. The magazine did not run the piece, so Lange devoted one whole issue of Aperture to the work. The photo collection was shown at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1960 (Wikipedia, 2012).
In the last two decades of her life, Lange 's health was poor. She was finally was laid in the arms of God on October 11, 1965, at age 70, because of esophageal cancer (Wikipedia, 2012).
While researching Dorothea Lange, I realized a couple of things.
One, I have never realized how just one photograph can stop a moment in time. Freeze all emotions, actions, and thoughts. To be able to do that is a real special talent. And if the picture is a good picture, a person is able to guess what the person(s) is feeling, saying, and thinking in the photo. And the other realization I made was when you look at an old picture you start to feel nostalgic and filled with wonder. A wonder that takes you into the photograph’s world and gives you a taste of what the time period was like. A good picture, in my opinion, should tell a story. And most pictures do that because the photographer is telling the story of their life through the pictures they take. At the beginning of this term, I was very confused and didn’t have a clue on what to do or what to take pictures of. I continued to be confused and nervous when I developed my first roll of film, when I made my first proof/contact sheet, and when I made my first picture. Slowly everything I learned from this class and what I knew previously came together; I became more confident as the term progressed. So confident, I was asked to help other students make proof sheets and pictures. With wanting to go into the photographing world, this class helped me recognize what a good picture and photographer needs to become successful. The process of winding film, developing film, creating test strips, and finally, printing the image is a long process to say the least. I feel grateful with the technology we do have; for example, digital cameras, memory cards, photo printers at
Wal-Mart.
Famous Photographs by Dorothea Lange
Title: Migrant Mother
Date/Time: February of 1936
Title: Migrant Mother II
Date/Time: August 17, 1936
Where: Blythe, California
Title: ‘If You Die, You’re Dead –That’s All’
Date/Time: June of 1938
Where: Childress, Texas
Works Cited
1.) Partridge, E. Restless Spirit: The Life and Work of Dorothea Lange. New York: Viking.
2.)Wikipedia. (2012, October 6). Dorothea Lange. Retrieved October 5, 2012, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothea_Lange
3.) Matthews, G. (2000, December 1). SIRS: Lange, Dorothea. Retrieved October 7, 2012, from SIRS Issues Researcher: http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=SKEY045-0-7910&artno=0000281359&type=ART&shfilter=U&key=Dorothea%20lange&title=Lange%2C%20Dorothea&res=Y&ren=N&gov=N&lnk=N&ic=N