Girl on a Bench
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Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) was born in Hoboken, N.J. and from an early age knew she wanted to be a photographer. "I have never not been sure that I was a photographer." In 1918, Ms. Lange moved to San Francisco and opened up what turned into a successful portrait studio. It was her work, that began in 1935, that I found the most fascinating. The Depression had set in and the Resettlement Administration (whose purpose was "to improve the lot of farm families" as part of the New Deal), employed Dorothea Lange to photograph migrant labor camps. It is this famous picture titled "Migrant Mother" along with many others that so perfectly captures the people struggling to survive amidst the Depression. In Christine M. Kreiser"s Article "Grab a Hunk of Lightening" she writes. "the haunted, hungry eyes of the 32-year-old mother of seven stare off into the distance." Ms. Kreiser then quotes Dorothea Lange " I did not create the image, but I was behind that big, old Graflex, using it as an instrument for recording something of importance. It is her picture, not mine." And that is what I am left with, and what I want to create with my photographs, capturing the subject (in this case my dog Tuck) as he is, without pose and in the moment.
Kreiser, C. M. (2014). 'Grab a hunk of lightning': the photography of Dorothea Lange. American History, (2), 52. Sources of Photographs: http://www.dorothealangephotos.com |