Dorothea Lange

[100205]

Kris Grubbs
8/10/2010

Dorothea Lange

A photographer that I like the most would have to be Dorothea Lange. I love her style and her realism that she captures with the camera. I’m in love with black and white film and I would say about 85% of her photos are black and white. I really like in her pictures that it has such a natural feel to it. As if you were actually there and feel what she was feeling when she took the picture. The depression was a bad time in American history and Dorothea Lange captured some of those moments.

Dorothea Lange could create something out of nothing. She would look at something that nobody else would notice and take a picture of it and make it a work of art. She inspires me in that way because when I take pictures I try and do the same thing. Dorothea Lange had a hard childhood when she was growing up and she could relate to some of the subjects that she took pictures of. When she was young she was struck with Polio which ended leaving her with a really bad limp.

One of my favorite pictures by her is the photo of the “Migrant Mother”. The saying that “There are a thousand words for every picture” definitely applies to the “Migrant Mother”. It’s a simple picture of a mother and her children but you can almost feel the hardship in which she is going through. It’s so real feeling and sad at the same time. You can see the stress in her body and the pain in her eyes as her children hang close to her side. She has so many other great pictures but this one expresses the most feeling in my eyes.

I really like that Dorothea Lange’s photographs influenced documentary photography. I love pictures that capture historical events or tell a story. In every picture there is always something to be said. Dorothea Lange captures many stories with her camera that show and tell the true heart of America as it was in the early 20th century. In 1945 Dorothea Lange was invited by Ansel Adams to accept a position as faculty at the first fine art photography department at an art school in California. That tells you something right there about how great her work is.

Dorothea Lange has influenced me in so many ways. The style of her photography, her stories that the pictures tell and the history in America. I like that she had such a great passion for photography and learned at such a young age. To spend her whole life doing what she loved and showing things to people that might not be able to see it. To make history by taking a picture of history is how I like to see it. Whenever I look at her photographs I think where she might have been standing. What the people were thinking that were around the picture and if there was a person in the picture what they were thinking while they were getting their picture taken. I have learned a lot just by looking at her pictures and creating a sense of style of my own.

[Duncan Rawlinson]

Hi Kris,

Thanks for submitting your assignment.

Assignment number 2 is all about inspiration. Who inspired you and whay? This assignment is highly subjective and there is no right or wrong assignments. The point of the assignment was to get you try and focus on what are of photography interests you.

In your case you’ve chosen the great Dorothea Lange as inspiration for this essay.

The “migrant mother” is an iconic image and you’ve described why it’s important to you in great detail.

For other students reading this we recommend you take a look at this photograph. We can all aspire to such greatness in photography.

http://www.google.com/search?&q=migrant+mother

We encourage you to learn as much as you’d like about individual photographers, but keep in mind you don’t want to spend your life on the internet or in the library researching them. We could all use a little less “online” time and more out in the field shooting time…

Great assignment Kris and as always we look forward to seeing your progress through the course.

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