Dorothea Lange

Last night I watched an American Masters documentary on PBS.  It was about Dorothea.  I have always been awed by her photography.  The documentary explained how she worked; gave details of her life; and showed many of her photos.

I was in heaven.  More than once I gasped at one of her photos.  Her ideas and her writings were inspiration to my mind.  I felt lifted somehow.  What I wouldn't have given to meet her.  

One of the reasons her photos come home for me is the characters she portrayed.  I have seen many of my own family in the faces of those people.  I know the stories of their lives during the depression.  How they had to keep moving to find a place they could farm.  Finally they gave up and went on to other pursuits.  I've actually seen the shacks of the poor blacks and their children standing their like little waifs.  My male ancestors were farmers.  They were more comfortable in overalls and brogans than anything else.  Although they did have a nice pair of pants and a starched shirt for Sunday.  Or Saturday nights for the juke joints.  I cannot explain why I had a kinship to those photographs but I did.  And I felt a kinship to her.  Such a free spirit.  In my heart I am that free spirit if I've had less than enough courage to be the kind that Dorothea was.  

Below are some of the photos that I found interesting; beginning with her most famous one:

Dorothea as a young woman--I love her enigmatic smile

During WW II she documented thee internment of the Japanese

She documented the arrival of the Mexicans to do farm labor

Dorothea documented the terrible food lines and skid row of the depression

Her best work in my eyes was the documentation of the dust bowl farmers walking or driving heavily loaded vehicles west to find work.

Dorothea towards the end of her life

She also came to the south to document the plight of the Negroes as sharecroppers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of her quotes:

“Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.”

 

“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”  

“A documentary photograph is not a factual photograph.”

 

 “Seeing is more than a physiological phenomenon… We see not only with our eyes but with all that we are and all that our culture is. The artist is a professional see-er.”

 

Every image he sees, every photograph he takes, becomes in a sense a self-portrait. The portrait is made more meaningful by intimacy - an intimacy shared not only by the photographer with his subject but by the audience.

One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you’d be stricken blind. To live a visual life is an enormous undertaking, practically unattainable. I have only touched it, just touched it.

...Art is a by-product of an act of total attention.

You can Google her photos.  You will get a sense of a time forgotten but best remembered.