Dorothea Lange: American Photographer and Photojournalist

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Dorothea Lange was an American photographer and photojournalist. Her Depression-era work is what she is best known for. She took a series of photographs in 1936 featuring migrant workers and their families in a camp in California. The photos were all taken in black and white. The most famous photo in this series is entitled A Migrant Mother. The photo includes four subjects, a mother and three of her children. The mother is in the middle, holding her baby, and her other children are resting their heads on her shoulders. The mother is looking off in the distance as her children shy away from the camera. They are all wearing tattered clothing and they are dirty. The second photo was taken of the same family, but from a distance. The family is living in a tiny tent, which looks as if it could fall at any minute. There are now five people featured in the photo. They are alone in a large, empty field. Their only belongings are shown bulging out of a couple of suitcases. This photo shows the terrible living conditions of the migrant camps. Although photo number one focuses on the emotions of desperation, photo number two shows this desperation in a more physical sense. Together in these two photographs, Lange is able to reveal the wide ranging effects of The Great Depression.
Both of the photographs were captured in black and white, which is one quality that they share. This lack of color fills both of the pictures with emotion. Black and white photos seem somewhat dull and lifeless, much like The Great Depression. The lack of color in both of the photos shows that the vibrance of life had been sucked out of the people. Color can be used as a mood elevator, and since these photos were taken in black and white, the mood seems depressed...

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...ssed the people involved, but also America. This picture gives its viewer a real feel of what it was like to live during The Great Depression.
The Great Depression took a toll on not only the physical population, but also on the emotions of the people involved. Lange shows the multiple effects of The Great Depression in her photos by not focusing solely on the environmental break down of America. The physical and emotional effects, displayed through photography, allowed the outside world insight into the struggles of the poor families of the Dust Bowl. Lange gave a parallel into The Great Depression because she presented it in a physical and emotional way. It is important for people to not only see the effects of The Great Depression, but also be able to feel the way it effected the people involved.

Works Cited

“Dorothea Lange.” Wikipedia. Web. 26 Oct. 2013.

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