Dorothea Lange

Dorothea Lange is an important person to photography because she

was one of the early documentarian photographers and she helped

influence the genre. Her work helped to humanize the struggles of people

during the Great Depression.

Dorothea Lange was born May 26, 1895 in Hoboken, New Jersey to

Joan Lange Nutzhorn and Henry Martin Nutzhorn, and she had one sibling

named Martin Lange. When she was 7 she contracted polio which left her

right leg and foot disfigured. She said her experience with polio “Formed,

guided, instructed, helped, and humiliated her.” Later in her life she worked

with photographers who gave her tips and taught her different techniques

that she would later use in her photos. She opened her own portrait studio

in 1918, and Married Maynard Dixon with whom she had 2 sons. After the

Great Depression hit she became unhappy with portrait work and decided

to go to the streets of San Francisco and looked for new techniques and

experimented with different elements of her photos.

Later in 1935, Lange was asked to become a photographer for the

FSA on a research project led by Paul Taylor who would later become her

second husband. When she took the photos she ended up using

techniques similar to the style used back in her studio to make the photos
look personal and intimate, and to capture the subject and their story. This

style of photography would develop into Lange’s signature style.

 I chose these photos because they showcase Dorothea Lange’s

signature style in capturing the subject and their surroundings and showing

their struggles in a humanizing way.