Dorothea Lange – One of The Most Renowned Documentary Photographers

Dorothea Lange was most known for her emotionally compelling portraits during depression era America. She grew up in a home that encouraged the perusal of creative arts, so after high school she went on to study photography at Columbia University. Her first experience in photography came as experience as a receptionist for Arnold Genthe, a nationally recognized portraitist at that time. From him, she learned basics of the art, and an appreciation for quality and design. After studying at Columbia, she led a bit of a nomadic lifestyle, moving around the country where work took her. Some of her most famous early work documented breadlines and soup kitchens in San Francisco. She accurately captured the struggles of unemployment in the city at that time. 

Lange captured the image she titled “White Angel Breadline” in 1933, during the peak of the Great Depression. She was said to refer to that photograph as her “breakthrough into documentary photography”. The picture is strong emotionally and artistically; the dark colors and repetition of the hats give an overwhelming feeling of being crowded. The subject of the image has his back turned to the others in the shot, which conveys the feeling of solitude and loneliness, even in a cramped situation. His clothes are dirty, and his head is bowed, all elements that convey what it was like to be living in that time. The photos that Lange shot in San Francisco that so accurately showed the struggles of homeless individuals gained a lot of attention, and she was soon approached by the Farm Security Administration (FSA). They asked her to document the living conditions of migrant workers in California during the Dust Bowl (Burns). Lange spent a good deal of time with the people in that area and took some of the most important images of her career at that time. 

In 1936, Lange captured “Migrant Mother” in Nipomo, California. The picture, a portrait of a mother holding two children who are shielding their faces, conveys raw emotion of exhaustion and worry. This photo is said to be the most important documentary photos of that era, and possibly of all time. The picture hangs now in the Library of Congress. The photos that Lange took of the workers revealed the nature of the horrible living conditions to the public, and then affected real change. The FSA used her pictures to advocate for government camps with better sanitation and protection for the migrant workers who were continuously arriving in the area. This area in her photographic career was the most well know. 

Lange worked over 30 years as a documentary photographer. After documenting the workers in California, she went on to cover the Japanese American internment camps in wake of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. She traveled abroad as well, adding more and more to portfolio. 

At the very end of her career, Lange worked on compiling an exhibition of her work to be displayed at the Museum of Modern Art, however, she died before the exhibit opened in 1965. Lange has continued to be renowned for her incredible documentation of human struggle. As a photographer who moved around a lot, and had assignments that took her away from home, her personal life was a little turbulent. She went through a divorce, a remarriage, and raised children as well. And that this would be one of the hardest parts of the job. Not always knowing where you will go next, or for how long, would be challenging.