Dorthea Lange's Artwork Analysis

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Dorthea Lange’s is widely known as a “photographer of people.” Her artwork documents the misery and hardships of people during the Great Depression. She hoped to help people by bringing attention by taking raw photographs of them in emotional situations. Dorothea Lange’s most famous photograph is the Migrant Mother. It is an image taken in Nipomo, California outside of a Pea Pickers Camp. Remarkably, this photograph was almost not taken. Dorothea Lange argued with herself debating whether or not there were already plenty of negatives about the subject of Picker Camps. However, she headed back to camp where sleet and rain had recently destroyed the pea crop causing no work and no money for the pickers. Dorothea approached a mother huddled under…show more content…
Unlike Lange, Walker was known to remain detached from his images. He did most of his work for the FSA (Farm Security Administration). Evans job was to take photographs at a resettlement community of unemployed coal miners in West Virginia in 1935. He took images that focused on the present, portraying the everyday life of people instead of trying to tell a story through a photograph like Lange. His most famous works are Alabama Tenant Farmer, Alabama Tenant Farmer’s Wife, and Street Scene, Vicksburg Mississippi. Although there are some differences between Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans work, they both are famous for portraying life during the Great…show more content…
Although, Lange’s style was subjective and based on the feeling and expressions of the people, while Evans’ photographs were objective and did not depict much if any emotion. However, Evans showed that material objects and the architecture around the people were just as important of a representation as a person themselves. The land, buildings, and objects help portray the time period and sets the stage for the photograph. Walker Evans images might not of focused on emotions like Dorothea Lange’s did, but it did show the raw and natural beauty in his photographs

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