“Photography
takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still. The visual life is an enormous undertaking.”
– Dorothea Lange
Born on this day in 1895, Lange
influenced generations of Americans with her poignant photographic images that
remain icons of the Great Depression.
Her photographs and accompanying writing about what she saw humanized
the Depression’s consequences and influenced the development of documentary
photography.
Her own pathway in life was hindered
by two traumatic events, the first being the victim of polio at age 7, a
disease that left her partially crippled for life. Then Lange and her family were abandoned by
her father when she was 12, spiraling them into poverty and forcing her to
start working as a young teen, including a part-time job as a photographer’s
assistant. Simultaneously continuing
her studies, she earned her high school diploma and enrolled at Columbia
University where she formally studied photography. In 1918, she found a job as
a photo finisher in San Francisco and embarked on the pathway to her eminent
career.
In 1933, she was signed by the
Roosevelt administration to begin documenting the lives of ordinary Americans
and what they were going through to survive the Depression. Her photos are still keys to our
understanding of what many Americans endured.
Often exposed to harsh and
unforgiving environmental conditions, she contracted esophogeal cancer and died
in 1965. But her work continues to be
studied by generations of young photographers.
“A camera,” she said, “is a tool
for learning how to see without a camera.”
Thanks to Dorothea Lange, we’ve
been able to see deeply into America’s history and its soul.
Lange (left) and her award-winning photo
of a migrant mom and kids in California in 1935
A PBS “American Masters” show on
Lange, “Grab A Hunk of Lightning,” can be found at: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/dorothea-lange-about-the-film/3096/
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