36 - New Jersey, Dorthea Lange
One movement of history that changed my own path is the history of photography. The photographers of the Farm Security Administration, led with Dorthea Lange, changed how information was offered to the public. People changed their understanding of current events, questioning what they were previously allowed to know and demanding information. Our world today is different because of photo journalism.
New Jersey was the 29th state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment on February 9, 1920.
Learning in high school that she was destined to be behind the camera, she attended Columbia University for photography. Trying to explore the world, she traveled with a girlfriend until stranded in San Francisco. At that point, she started a career and connected with the local photography scene.
In the 1930s with her second husband, she began documenting rural poverty and migrant workers. Joining the Resettlement Administration and Farm Security Administration, Lange’s portraits brought the reality of the depression to the public.
She told the San Francisco newspaper about conditions and provided him with two of her photographs. The editor informed federal authorities and published an article that included the images.
Twenty-two of the photographs she took as part of the FSA were included in John Steinbeck’s The Harvest Gypsies when it was originally published in The San Francisco News in 1936. Her photo entitled “Migrant Mother” became the most reproduced photograph in the world.
Her next endeavor took her to Japanese Internment Camps on the west coast. Many of the photos were withheld from the public by the government, but are available in the National Archives.
At the end of her life, she helped curate the first one-person retrospective at MOMA in New York City.
Why this woman?
In my photography history, learning about the FSA program brought to light a series of photographers that moved me, most notably “Migrant Mother”. The eye for composure and depth of exposure are the most impactful art I have seen.
Dorthea Lange was one of the leaders of this genre of photography. Her contemporaries worked with her to develop a style through artistic impressions of the troubles plaguing America during the Depression. The government’s vision of documenting this era became the beginning of photo-journalism. Public opinion changed with photographers releasing the truth of travesties of war and horrors of news that typically was censored to the public. Photo-journalism changed society to what we have today.
Photography portrayed everything in my personal art and expression. As an architect, we are to push our artistic hand. I was intimidated joining my classmates until I found my medium. My whole life, when I traveled I took photos of everything. Of nothing. I have every one of my cameras starting with my dad’s old, manual camera. I explored the power of film. I refused to get a digital camera in fear of losing control of the final image. Without counting, I easily own 25 cameras and associated lenses. Every one of them had a time in my life, a purpose, a heart. I dream of makding Daguerreotypes or silver gelatin prints. But alas ... we must progress ... to our digital world.
New Jersey was the 29th state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment on February 9, 1920.
Learning in high school that she was destined to be behind the camera, she attended Columbia University for photography. Trying to explore the world, she traveled with a girlfriend until stranded in San Francisco. At that point, she started a career and connected with the local photography scene.
In the 1930s with her second husband, she began documenting rural poverty and migrant workers. Joining the Resettlement Administration and Farm Security Administration, Lange’s portraits brought the reality of the depression to the public.
She told the San Francisco newspaper about conditions and provided him with two of her photographs. The editor informed federal authorities and published an article that included the images.
Twenty-two of the photographs she took as part of the FSA were included in John Steinbeck’s The Harvest Gypsies when it was originally published in The San Francisco News in 1936. Her photo entitled “Migrant Mother” became the most reproduced photograph in the world.
Her next endeavor took her to Japanese Internment Camps on the west coast. Many of the photos were withheld from the public by the government, but are available in the National Archives.
At the end of her life, she helped curate the first one-person retrospective at MOMA in New York City.
Why this woman?
In my photography history, learning about the FSA program brought to light a series of photographers that moved me, most notably “Migrant Mother”. The eye for composure and depth of exposure are the most impactful art I have seen.
Dorthea Lange was one of the leaders of this genre of photography. Her contemporaries worked with her to develop a style through artistic impressions of the troubles plaguing America during the Depression. The government’s vision of documenting this era became the beginning of photo-journalism. Public opinion changed with photographers releasing the truth of travesties of war and horrors of news that typically was censored to the public. Photo-journalism changed society to what we have today.
Photography portrayed everything in my personal art and expression. As an architect, we are to push our artistic hand. I was intimidated joining my classmates until I found my medium. My whole life, when I traveled I took photos of everything. Of nothing. I have every one of my cameras starting with my dad’s old, manual camera. I explored the power of film. I refused to get a digital camera in fear of losing control of the final image. Without counting, I easily own 25 cameras and associated lenses. Every one of them had a time in my life, a purpose, a heart. I dream of makding Daguerreotypes or silver gelatin prints. But alas ... we must progress ... to our digital world.
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