Below is the feedback I recieved from my tutor in regard to my critical review for Assignment 4. Since my feedback I have signed up and completed work with the Royal Literary Fund. This has started my journey towards mastering the skill of writing in an academic way.
I have begun to read Umberto Eco “How to write a thesis” and have read “Cite them rite”.
I have also completed an online course in Japanese Stab Binding and have ordered the materials and the tools to make a photobook with the control over the whole process.
In this research I will look at Towards Los Angeles a photograph by Dorothea Lange taken in the great depression in the USA. Before I critique this photograph I would like to discuss the journey the artist took to get to the point of taking this photo.
Dorothea Lane was born on the 26th of May 1895 in Hoboken New York her birth name was Dorothea Margareta Nutzhorn her parents were of German dissent and were named Heinrich Nutzhorn and her mother Johanna Lange. In 1907 her father abandoned the family who were completed by a boy, Martin. When this happened Dorothea dropped her middle name and took her mother’s surname becoming Dorothea Lange.
At age seven she contracted polio and while many would see this as a handicap Dorothea embraced it saying “It formed me, guided me, instructed me, helped me and humiliated me. (Lange, 1998)” After graduating from school she attended Columbia University where she was tutored by Clarence H. White. Leaving university she worked in several of the best photographic studios in New York.
Her wanderlust took her on a trip with her friend they planned to see the world but were robbed in San Francisco so they settled there. She worked in photo studios meeting several influential people who helped her set up a successful studio taking photos of the wealthy. In 1920 she married Maynard Dixon and over the next ten years had two sons.
During this period she completed several projects one being of the unemployed and homeless. She by chance took an exposure at the soup kitchen run by a widow nicknamed “The White Widow” (Lange, 1936). This photo naturally had the title “White Angel Breadline” (Lange, 1936). It was liked locally by influential practitioners’ and it led to work with the Resettlement Administration (RA) the forerunner of the Farm Security Administration (FSA).
FSA Logo (1936)
During 1935 she divorced Dixon and married the economist Paul Schuster Taylor. Taylor was a Professor of Economics at the University of Berkeley. They went onto record the poverty around the area where they lived. Taylor wrote pieces about the families encountered while Dorothea photographed them.
Towards Los Angeles Dorothea Lange 1937
Working for the FSA allowed her to capture some of the most important photos of the time. “Migrant Mother” (Lange, 1937) is one of the most revered images of all time and was taken around the same time as “Towards Los Angeles.” (Lange, 1937) Many of her photos were printed by the “San Francisco News”, when they supported John Steinbeck’s work “The Harvest Gypsies” (Steinbeck, 1936), a collection of articles about the farmers suffering the depression supported by images including “Migrant Mother”.
John Steinbeck Pamphlet Harvest Gypsies 1938.
Her next big piece of work was documenting the lives of interred Japanese-Americans; this work was carried out for the War Relocation Authority. She applied herself to the plight of these people so well that the government wouldn’t let them be seen. They didn’t want any sympathy for the Japanese citizens.
In 1945 Ansell Adams asked Dorothea to teach at California School of Fine Arts. Their friend Imogen Cunninham from Group f.64 joined at the same time.
Life Magazine Logo
She Co-founded the magazine LIFE in 1952 and Dorothea did several pieces of work for this magazine including the damming of Berryessa and its effect on the residents. Again she documented the suffering warts and all.
Then in 1952 Dorothea Co-founded Aperture Magazine which is still in print today she had been familiar with Group f.64 and the magazine this group produced called “Camera Craft” (Lange, 1935).
Apperture Magazine Logo
John Szarkowski displayed her work at the MoMA between 26th January and 10th April 1966. He couldn’t believe the collection of work she held at home and how well they were indexed. She worked tirelessly even though her health was now failing.
From about this time until her death in San Francisco her health suffered. She died from Cancer on October 11th 1965. She must be remembered for her favourite saying “Grab a Hunk of Lightning”.
Susan Sontag (Sontag, 1979) says about privileged photographers hanging around the oppressed and even looking down on people. “Social misery has inspired the comfortably off with the urge to take photographs”. Susan Sontag On Photography ISBN 978-0-141-037678-9 Page 55 Par 1 Line 8. I don’t feel this with Lange. I see someone who wanted to tell the story visually whilst improving the lives of the people photographed and the ones who were not.
In it he discusses the returning German casualties being fitted with Prosthetic limbs. The Red Cross produced a book entitled “Reconstructing a man” in 1918. It acknowledges the fact that thousands of men were returning home and being “repaired” in fact made better than their pre-war selves by being fitted with prosthetic limbs. They even termed them “Homo Prostheticus”. These “Robots” could complete their work more efficiently than they could have before the war. Could this have been a driver for Sander to record the normal people who did these tasks less efficiently as well as recording the disappearing people pre metropolis? Was he afraid they would be taken over by man machines, and then later he may have seen the war coming with more “Homo Prostheticus” men to flood the county?
Heinrich Hoerle painted “Monument of the Unknown Prostheses’ (Denkmal der unbekannten Prothesen, 1930)”. To show how man had returned and being fitted with prosthetic limbs and had become an uber efficient machine a “better” version of himself. Hoerle wanted to questions this pointing to the anguish these individuals suffered due to their injuries. They were not “Uber Menschen” but victims of war injuries.
Heinrich Hoerle “Monument of the Unknown Prostheses’ (Denkmal der unbekannten Prothesen, 1930)”.
The photographers working for the FSA were doing much the same work. Sent out into the landscape to document the suffering of those people living on the land. These people were injured by the Great Depression and their injuries were mental, but just as damaging as losing a limb. You can see the mental anguish in the photograph “Migrant Mother” (Lange, 1936). Dorothea Lange captures it perfectly you can see the vulnerability of this woman at the same time seeing her pride, fear and concern for her offspring all in equal measure.
Migrant Mother (Lange, 1937).
In the “Great Depression” Franklin D Roosevelt set up several administrations to help show the state of the nation. Then to suggest and document any improvements carried out to improve the situation in the nation. One of these administrations was the Farm Security Administration (FSA).
The man placed in charge of the FSA was Roy Stryker. He was an academic and a man who had served in the US Infantry in World War One. He was disciplined and intelligent so had the right characteristics to complete this huge task. He thought photography was excellent at supporting the written word so employed 13 proven photographers (Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Walker Evans, Ben Shahn, John Vachon, Marion Post-Walcott, Russell Lee, Jack Delano, Gordon Parks, John Collier, Carl Mydans, Edwin Rosskam and Louise Rosskam) to capture images across the USA. At the end of the FSA work in 1942 when the FSA was incorporated into the Office of War Information Stryker used all of his discipline to catalogue and archive these exposures including many of the ones with holes punched in them. He was assisted by
This project was a huge undertaking and he would have needed all of his military experience of logistical organization coupled with his knowledge of the US to send these few out into the field to capture the images. He was dictatorial in his approach, giving exposure lists to each of the photographers. Some as detailed as “A white house, with a white fence”, He wouldn’t let the photographers stray from his scripts.
When the negatives came in to his office in Washington he would review each one and any Stryker didn’t like or were out of focus or off topic would be destroyed with a hole punch. Most of the photographers were dismayed to see their work treat in this manner and complained to Stryker. Later in the project he relaxed this practice.
Photo showing a hole punched in it (LoC, 1937).
I found it interesting to consider the time scale for each part of the project exposures were made then posted into Washington, Stryker reviewed and printed them and sent them back to be captioned then they were returned to the office for use. This could take two or three weeks. Lange kept detailed notes of what was said by her subjects so she could caption the photos, often with the words the subjects had spoken. These are all kept and shown in the Library of Congress in Washington and are available to all online.
The FSA created 77,000 negatives including 644 in colour they are a record of the conditions agricultural workers were enduring trying to support themselves and their families. Most are regular shots fulfilling Stryker’s lists but some are moving and works of art. I do wonder as I look at Towards Los Angeles if it was staged and looked at examples from before this time where photographs had been manipulated to understand how far photographers and organizations would go to put across a theme.
Farm Labourers in Sugar Cane Jack Delano 1941.
Joseph Stalin had people removed from photographs as they fell out of favour. One shows a young commissar stood in a group by a river he must have fallen from grace because in later versions he is missing. Frank Hurley who was the photographer on Shackleton`s ill fated expedition recorded all aspects of the journey, but in the rescue photo only one lifeboat rows to shore, he had scratched out the other to make the exposure more dramatic. He had manipulated earlier photos to create his postcard business in Australia. Even Abraham Lincoln had featured in a manipulated negative when his head was imposed on John Calhoun’s body to make a well-used image. So well before Lange took Towards Los Angeles images were being altered to project a message.
Lincolns head on Calhouns body
Scratched out boat
Missing Comissar
I can find no evidence for Lange having manipulated the exposure and do not think she would do so. However the photo does look as if some staging may have been employed. The fact it is so perfectly aligned to the rule of 3rds both in the horizontal and the vertical. The timing of the steps almost too perfect a decisive moment. The tracks in the dust on the road verge suggests someone pulling over and discussing the staging. Does it matter if it was staged?
I considered the billboard in Lange’s photo and wondered if others had used them before her. I found that Walker Evans had shown billboards in “Billboards and houses in Atlanta 1936 (Evans, 1936). Lange was a colleague and friend of Evans so would have been aware of this shot. Then I found “Kentucky Flood” (Bourke-White, 1937) a photo, which depicts a group of people queuing for relief in front of a billboard with an all-American family driving a car under the slogan “Worlds highest standard of living”. This was taken just weeks before Lange took “Towards Los Angeles”. She would also have been aware of this image as it was featured across the press and was the cover of “Life” magazine. Evans earlier shot showed just billboards whilst Bourke-Whites image combined people with the billboard making a powerful image.
Kentucky Flood 1937
Kentucky Flood 1937
Pea Pickers behind billboard Lange 1937
Pea Pickers shelter Lange 1937
Billboard Route 99 1937
This research should enable me to review Lange’s photo and possibly expand further work describing the FSA and all that it achieved.
Bourke-White, Margaret. “The Kentucky Flood.” Whitney Museum of American Art. Art and Artists. New York.
Delano, Jack. “Farm Labourers in a sugar can field”. Library of Congress. Washington 1941.
Evans, Wlaker. “Houses and Billboards in Atlanta.” Museum of Modern Art. Art and Artists. New York, 1936.
Hoerle, Heinrich. Monument of the Unknown Prostheses. Berlin Museum of Art, Berlin.
Lange, Dorothea. Camera Craft. Camera Craft, 1935.
Grab a hunk of lightning. Directed by Dyanna Taylor. Performed by Dorothea Lange. 2014.
Lange, Dorothea. “Migrant Mother.” Library of Congress. Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California. Washington, 1936.
Lange, Dorothea. “The White Angell Bread Line.” MoMA. Chicago. 1936.
Lange, Dorothea. The White Widow. MoMA, Chicago.
“Library of Congress.” Washington USA: Library of Congress, 2020.
To complete this assignment I want to look at the photograph (1)“Towards Los Angeles” by Dorothea Lange. I chose this photograph as it is one of the lesser known works however to me it appeals showing pathos and humour in equal measure.
The photograph was taken in February 1936 during the Great Depression in the United States. It is a Silver Gelatin Print taken during her work around El Monte and San Fernando, California for the Farm Service Agency(FSA). It is taken on the road to Los Angeles.
The work is a landscape with a billboard and two men walking along a road lined with telegraph poles. The both carry luggage. The man on the left is carrying a suitcase in his left hand whilst the man on the right is carrying a canvass holdall on his right shoulder. They both look like Cowboys or at least farm hands. The luggage they carry looks to be in good condition and the clothes they are wearing appear to be in good order. The left mans right shoulder is drooping due to the weight of his luggage.
Both men`s necks and hands are visible and look well tanned from hard days working on the land that this road snakes across. Their feet are in different stages of walking the right mans left foot is off the ground and the man on the left has is right foot raised off the ground in a purposeful march into the future.
The road they are walking on is a tarmac road with a dusty verge and they are walking with the billboard to their right. The bill board says “Next time try the train”, with a line underneath that states “RELAX” accompanied by the name of the railroad placing the advert “Southern Pacific”. Underneath the billboard there is a trellis to finish off the billboard but it adds a new texture to the picture.
From the left edge of the picture run telegraph poles at least ten in number run along the verge of the road. On the right side a series of fence posts runs between the men and the billboard forming a barrier between the longed for better life and the walk. The surface of the dusty verge is indented with the treads of the cars which have pulled over off the tarmac for unknown purposes.
The billboard appears to be on land between the fence and open farmland the type of land these men are leaving. There is a second less prominent fence behind the billboard which emphasises the lead line it forms.
The sky makes me think it is blue and peppered with wispy clouds being blown into majestic lines which luckily add to the lead lines in the rest of the picture. It is a bright sunny day with little wind on a dry dusty day.
Leading lines.
The line of telegraph poles and the fences form a great lead line into the picture and give it feel of great perspective emphasising the distance these men have yet to travel. The billboard makes a statement just in its presence. The lines of perspective are added to by the tire tracks and even the clouds being blown into shape in the air. The right hand verge adds a shadow which breaks up the photo and adds the strongest lead line in the photograph.
Rule of thirds vertically.
The photo whilst having these strong lead lines also follows the rules of thirds if you draw a line through the left shoulder of the left man from top to bottom you get the space for the telegraph poles, Do the same through the right shoulder of the man on the right you get a space for the men with a third segment for the billboard.
Rule of thirds horizontally.
It also follows this rule horizontally the line of the horizon gives a large empty space, secondly a line across the picture level with the soles of the feet has all the detail in it. Finally the lower space has the tarmac road, dusty verge forming a second empty space.
The last observation I make looking at the photograph is that the men are taking no notice of the billboard they seem to be just focused on the task in hand the journey through this landscape to a hoped for better future.
Colour boxes and lines my eye sees.
Within the frame I see a triangle formed with the perspective of the road between the verge and the telegraph poles. Then two rectangles one is the obvious one in the billboard, the second one is formed by the sky. Finally I see a square around the two men walking?
At first glance the picture appears balanced and almost flat. However look further and you see the perspective formed by all the lines. Then the Billboard throws the picture out of balance and you see the writing this begins the questions and made me laugh when I read the words. The men throw the picture back into balance with all the action in the middle section.
The contrast is uniform in most of the picture, one element the dark verge to the right emphasises this lead line and takes your eye into the billboard.
The men’s feet walking into the scene give a sense of movement and hint at the long journey being completed. The lead lines emphasise this journey adding a sense that this walk is to be a long one which alternatively could be made by rail. The lines guide you into the photo and to the billboard. The sky and the land show that this is big country. Telegraph poles disappearing are the last element giving a sense of distance yet to travel.
My eye goes to the centre of the photo to begin with but this area is empty between the men and the board. Sometimes my eye goes left to the men and sometimes to the right to the billboard. My eye does this as the two main subjects are balanced on the central line. Then my eye looks at the telegraph poles and gets the sense of distance. The two men are darker than the rest of the photo so stand out due to their darkness. Then the board stands out because it is brighter than the men.
This photo is unusual as Lange usually takes photographs showing serious scenes. This has satire and subtle humour whilst still having a serious message. Shadows leading from the men’s feet hint that it is late in the day and they have already travelled far whilst having far to go. Reclining on a seat a man has a easy time travelling this same route whilst our two heroes have to suffer a long walk.
This work was created to document the suffering of the workers in the USA caused by the Great Depression. The failure of the crops coupled with banks foreclosing on loans led to mass migration of people across the USA. This is summed up in one simple shot. In 1/15th of a second Lange has caught the migration of agricultural workers who can’t even afford a rail ticket. She has then presented it with humour showing how these people just got up and got on with it. What choice did they have?
We must remember one of Dorothea Langes favourite sayings was (2)“Grab a hunk of lightning” I think she did that here.
I find this work rewarding to look at, The song from Monty Pythons (3)Life of Brian (4)“Always look on the bright side of life” comes to mind when I see this photograph. These men are walking to a hoped for brighter future. I see the same thing in Walker Evans photograph (5) “Hitch hikers near Vicksburg Mississippi”, however Lange has added the billboard in her shot, this added element makes it more palatable but takes nothing away from the serious message.
This photograph has travelled well through the 80 years since it was taken. We have migrants across the world moving to find better futures for their families caused by financial institution and governmental mistakes. Different times same mistakes.
Looking at this exposure gives me a sense of hope for the future whilst dreading the past left behind. I wonder if these two men have left families behind who will join them once new hopeful lives have been created. Much like when I see the male refugees arriving on the shores of Europe today.
This work is poignant, funny, striking, timeless and disturbing all at the same time. It is a beautiful, simple depiction of an ugly subject. Much like some of the work we see in the media capturing the hope people have when they suffer indignities to get to a Promised Land.
This work is a huge success it makes me think. I want to know the stories behind the footsteps and I want to find out where the steps into the unknown led these two men. I want to understand what led to this 1/15th of a second. If I had seen the photo at the time it was taken I would have spent time to find out all I could and would be doing all I could to help. Whether it is beautiful or ugly is unimportant it is a success because it makes me care.
On first seeing this photograph I thought it was original, doing my research though led me to several examples where a similar scene was shown. August Sander shows a similar scene with (6)“Itinerant Basket Weavers (1929) as does Walker Evans in (5)“Hitchhikers near Vicksburg Mississippi” (1939). The difference is the billboard this adds a memorable element, at first funny then thought provoking. Interesting that Lange and Evans knew each other and took similar shots of the same subject in the same year did they compare and discuss their work?
August Sanders (1920)
Walker Evans (1935)
Dorothea Lange used her camera well however she used her number one and number two instruments exquisitely, her eye and her brain. She will have had moments to see and set up this shot, she did it superbly.
In looking at this exposure I began by critiquing it as a photograph but have ended relishing it for the mood it creates. It captures the situation these people were forced into then shows the spirit of these two humans in dealing with their situation. Dorothea then shows us some humour and we empathise with these two men. We all enjoy a little humour even dark humour in times of trouble.
These individuals are going on a journey together, I am going with them. More than this I want to get involved not just with these individuals but with the struggle the farmers are suffering. Some critics of photography have pointed out that “privileged people” use their cameras to look down on poor subjects. I believe this work and others like it encourage us to find out more, when other organisations may not want us to see it at all.
All this from one photograph that at the outset looked like a simple, slightly humorous shot. If you set out with an interest and have an open mind it is amazing where these practitioners can take us.
Further Reading/recommended viewing.
Group f64 Mary Street Alinder published by Bloomsbury ISBN 978=1-420090-555-0.
Dorothea Lange: Grab a hunk of lightning American Masters video. Released 29th of August 2014.
References
(1)Lange, Dorothea. Towards Los Angeles. MoMA, Chicago.
(2)Grab a hunk of lightning. Directed by Dyanna Taylor. Performed by Dorothea Lange. 2014.
(3)The Life of Brian. Directed by Terry Jones. Performed by Monty Python. 1979.
(4)Python, Monty. Always look on the brightside of life. Comp. Eric Idle. 1979.
(5)Evans, Walker. Hitch hikers near Vicksburg Mississippi. FSA, San Francisco.
(6)Sander, August. Itinerant Basket Weavers. National Gallery of Victoria, Victoria.
Michael Green Landscape Studies 