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Showing posts with label Japanese Internment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Japanese Internment. Show all posts

Monday, September 1, 2014

Dorothea Lange


Dorothea Lange was the first photographer I fell in love with. It was and remains a total infatuation. Her Iconic and brilliantly honest work, her mastery of her chosen instrument and the decisions, journalistic and artistic are representative of the vision sublime.


Lange’s camera and eye were drawn to those on the fringes of society. The Invisible American’s; those numbering among the forgotten or ignored became her subjects of choice. The results are remarkable in their simplicity and directness. She was a serious photographer. Her works date her to a time when life was many times more brutal and devoid of the excess and glitz of our times.  Her prime years depicted many of America’s most trying: the Great Depression, The Dust Bowl Era, Japanese Internment Camps and the early Plight of the Migrant Worker. Her eye sought out the universal and commonality of all Americans like no other photographer. She is from a time before the “selfie.” Lange was looking out into the world as she discovered beauty and truth among the pains of human existence, suffering and trials. Lange was a beautiful woman of heart, mind and spirit. She has given the world much through her activism and journalistic works.


The photographic compositions of Dorothea Lange speak so eloquently for themselves they need little embellishment or definition. I have included a selected portfolio of some of her best and moving treasures. I have also included a link to the documentary; “Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning” from the PBS series “American Masters.”  It centers on Lange’s preparation for her MoMA retrospective and covers many aspects of the photographer’s life in intimate detail. The life was amazing, indeed. You be the judge.  


“The camera is a powerful instrument for saying to the world: this is the way it is…

Look at it!        Look at it!”

Dorothea Lange

























“Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning”