The Migrant Mother Photographs of Dorothea Lange - Essay Example

The Migrant Mother’ Introduction Photographs are said to be perfect eyewitness as the pictures captured always tell more than words can ever explain. In fact there is a saying that goes that a picture if worth a thousand words. This is true as some artists prefer to speak their minds through photography where they have the opportunity of display injustices and elicit emotions and sympathy of the masses. Photography can be defined as the art and science of producing lasting images through the use of light and an image sensor (Marien, 2006). This process was stared in the 1800 by a man named Thomas Wedgwood but failed then another man called nicephore niepce succeed in the year 1820. However, reality and normal photography was established 1839 and is also the accepted establishment of this science-art (Marien, 2006). These artists have found out that people respond well to pictures than words and it is easier to get attention and the needed support by showing the world what they want through their lenses. One such artist is Dorothea Lange who is considered to be one of the world’s best photographers of all time. Dorothea Lange was an American photographer and photojournalist. She lived from 1895 to 1965 and is renowned globally for her work during the great American depression era when she worked for Farm Security Administration, FSA. It is during this time that her best noted and well received photograph was taken. The photo is of a woman called Florence Owens Thompson whose famous picture was labeled ‘the migrant mother’ (Spirn & Lange, 2008). This paper is going to discuss the photograph ‘the migrant mother’ and how Dorothea Lange has invented meaning in her picture. Furthermore, the essay is going to discuss the photograph in relation to its production, reception, social, historical, biographical and technical circumstances. Florence Owens Thompson ‘the migrant mother’ Florence Owens Thompson is the woman behind the famous photograph by Dorothea Lange during the depression era. The depression was a time that frustrated all Americans but more so the farmers (Nardo, 2011). This is because they had to suffer twice that is suffer nationwide economic problems and also suffer due to failed crops, floods, storms and other natural disasters. During this time farmers became poverty stricken and had to move locations in order to find work on other farms to earn a living. Most of them had to migrate to California to work on pea farms only to find that the crops had been frozen and they remained poorer with no money or food to survive. This took place during President Roosevelt franklin’s administration and he wanted to know the plight of the migrant workers. He first established an agency that dealt with the migrant workers called the FSA or resettlement administration. In order to get the situation of the migrant workers photographers were sent to tell their story through their lenses and Dorothea Lange was among the photographers sent. They were sent in order to welcome the migrants and aid their plight by documenting their lives at the camp. The Photo Session Dorothea Lange photographed the migrant mother in an unintentional manner in the year 1936 during the great depression era (Phelan, 2014). It happened long after she had finished her assignment by the president. She came to a sign to a camp and entered to find a woman who caught her attention. The woman looked miserable, poor and worried as she was shabbily dressed and had many unkempt children around her. Her tent was makeshift tents called the Leon-on tent and beside it were dirty clothes and other signs of poverty. Lange came to realize that they had become immobilized due to their eating of frozen peas. Immediately Dorothea Lange took out her camera and in a span of ten minutes she took six photos of the family of a mother and her kids (Lange, 2015). The woman in the photograph, Florence Owens Thompson formerly known as Florence Leona Christie was born in Oklahoma known as Indian Territory back then in 1903 and died in 1983. She died out of cancer and heart complications and people really sympathized with her and sent donations for her medical cover. She had ten children and was married to three husbands Cleo Owens, Jim hill and medical administrator George Thompson. The pictures are taken from a far range to near range were six in total with different angles, different characters and different distances. Ironically, the last picture was the well known picture and the one that became famous. This is because many people said that it was more personal and it made it easy to relate to the woman. This sixth picture was done very near to the subjects and the woman in question is the centre of the photograph and her two children with their heads hidden behind their mothers back. A mother carries her younger child on her laps and it seems it is sleeping. The picture cuts out all the aspects of the pea camp and focuses on the woman and her three children (Lane & Obrien, 2011). The whole picture of the woman’s situation can be seen on her face. She has lines on her brows creasing on her forehead making her look older than her real age. In the picture she was thirty two but she looked like a sixty year old woman. The position of her hand portrays worry and misery as she is holing or maybe slightly pinching her right chin as if in deep thought. She also look hungry or starved for a long period and Dorothea later learns that the woman had not eaten as she had only made food for her children and they had been feeding on frozen food and had been immobilized. Her hair is unkempt and looks dirty; her clothes are rugged since her sweater is worn out and cut at the elbow and even her skin is dry and flaky. Her children’s clothing also depicts the same poverty status. They look dirty judging from their necks, their hair is dirty and their clothes look old. They face away from Dorothea as if afraid of a stranger and a camera but is often been speculated that Dorothea posed them like this to achieve more effect of their plight when shown to the world. However, all their faces are not in sync with Dorothea the photographer and they have a faraway look even the mother who is the centre of this photo. This feature is also still speculated to have been manipulated by Dorothea to achieve maximum attention. The first picture has been captured far away from the mother and her children. The mother is inside the tent holding her young child, as one child takes centre of the picture by sitting outside the tent. Her two children are standing inside with her. The picture does not only capture the migrant family as it also captures the surrounding camp and its conditions. In fact the aim of the picture was to depict the living conditions of the migrants (Lane & Obrien, 2011). The tent is a lean on tent, with an open suitcase and dirty utensils on the ground. The face of the people in the photo is far away and not clear from this distance however; the face of a woman, a boy and two young boys can be seen from the distance. The second picture captures another angle of the mother as the mother is the main feature of these series of pictures. The boy sitting on the rocking chair outside is now inside the house on the same chair as the mother and her one two children sit by the side but inside of the tent. The open suitcase is still in front of them with clothes spewing over. The aim of this angle is to capture the inside of the tent as it can be seen very clearly unlike the first picture which focused on the surroundings. This picture focuses more on the inside of the tent. The faces of the mother or the other people in the photo still cannot be seen because of the distance and also because they are not looking at the picture. The third picture now portrays another angle and is nearer to the mother than the two before it. Here the mother is feeding her young child by giving it breast milk. We can now see the face a bit clearer than the first two pictures and it is clear she is not happy. She looks tired, hungry and poor. A dirty lantern is placed besides her depicting that they did not even have electricity in the camp and had to use lanterns of paraffin. This shows the difficult life the migrant’s had to face while searching for work in farms. The fourth picture is now closer to the people in the picture and the faces of the people can be seen clearly. This angel focuses on the woman with the faraway look, her young sleeping child and her son leaning on her shoulder but still not looking at the camera. This angle only captures the mother and her two children and even the tent is not the focus here. The woman’s face is clearer and she looks very old despite being only thirty two years old. The child looks like he is seeking a silent reassurance from his mother by leaning on her shoulder. The fifth picture captures the same picture as picture four but with little differences. It is the same angle but the woman has changed the position of her head, the young boy is till leaning on his mothers shoulder but he is holding the pole that supports the tent in a playful manner and also there is an empty plate on a wooden table beside her. This picture when scrutinized deeply portrays a life of poverty and a starvation. Also it portrays a worried mother who is perhaps thinking of where she is going to get food for her children yet the children are so oblivious of this fact that he dares to play with the pole that holds their ‘house’ in place. Then the sixth and famous picture is taken at a close range and focusing on the mother and her three children. The series of photographs done by Dorothea Lange are all in black and white color. This black and white color preference is intentional. The color choice brings the photographs meaning in that black and white achieves more attention and also depicts the pictures true identity without the flair of colors. The effects that the pictures could have achieved had they been colored are not the same as the attention and emotions elicited when they are in black and white. In addition to this black and white color does not distract observers from the real focal point of a picture. Black and white also works well in every kind of surroundings and lightening in fact it turns moody environment to a bright environment and with no distractions. This is the essence that Dorothea is trying to capture with her photographs since black and white are more artistic than color photos. Thus Dorothea has combined beauty, art and photography to make sure that the intended emotion is elicited. Moreover, black and white pictures look more authentic and real and depict the plight in its raw manner (Colberg, 2013). This is the reason many donation and requests commercials prefer to use black and white photos. The choice of the angles chosen by Dorothea are also well intended in that the taking of six picture sin ten minutes mean that the pictures are taken is quick succession. This kind of photography is telling a story in lenses in that the characters every move is captured and a story is told. For example in Dorothea’s six photos tell a story of the migrants. The first picture shows the surroundings so that when the actual faces are shown the observer can tell why their faces look like the way they do. For example we see the surrounding of the camp as in bad shape, then the inside of the tent as empty and poor, then we see the picture of the mother and her children living in that tent then the two last pictures depicts the faces of the mother and her children. The face tells a story but the observer is able to connect the face to the surrounding and know what the story is saying without being told (Hariman & Lucaites, 2007). Furthermore, the pictures have small captions that are little but speak volumes when put together with the photos. The use of more than one photograph is also intentional as Dorothea uses six photos to tell a story. One picture can also say a story but more than one photo tells the whole story without any misconceptions. Finally, a black and white photo of a mother and a child elicits emotions from most people unlike a photo of men in the same condition. Conclusion The migrant mother photo is a famous photo done by Dorothea Lange after she was sent on a mission with other photographers by President Roosevelt. The series of photos taken displays the life of the migrants and the poverty they lived in. the last picture is the one that became famous of the six pictures because it was the larger picture that captures the woman and her children and makes it more personal. The picture was made famous after Dorothea published it on a magazine which saw the government take huge pounds of food to the migrants. The picture was well received and the migrants were happy in fact the migrant mother called Florence Owens Thompson was highly respected by the other migrants for she saved them. However, in later interviews it was found out that the family of Florence did not like the picture and said they had been promised that the picture was not going to be published. On the other hand, they say the picture is their motivation in life not to be poor ever again in their lives. The picture is done in black and white and in series of six and also in different distances all done to achieve maximum effect and tell a perfect story of the migrants. Appendix The famous picture. It is the sixth and last one in the series. The first picture to the fifth one References Hariman, R., & Lucaites, J. (2007, April 8). No Caption Needed. Retrieved May 5, 2015, from http://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/316062.html Lange, D. (n.d.). The migrant mother. Retrieved May 5, 2015, from http://picturingamerica.neh.gov/downloads/pdfs/Resource_Guide_Chapters/PictAmer_Resource_Book_Chapter_18B.pdf Lane, A., & Obrien, E. (2011, November 22). Points of view. The migrant mother. Retrieved May 5, 2015, from http://www.csus.edu/indiv/o/obriene/art1B/Amy Lane Points of View Fall 2012.pdf Marien, M. W. (2006). Photography: A cultural history. London: King. M. colberg, J. (2013, May 20). Looking at Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother. Retrieved May 5, 2015, from http://cphmag.com/migrant-mother/ Nardo, D. (2011). Migrant mother: How a photograph defined the Great Depression. Mankato, MN: Compass Point Books. Phelan, B. (2014, April 14). The Story of the "Migrant Mother" Retrieved May 5, 2015, from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/fts/kansascity_201307F03.html Spirn, A. W., & Lange, D. (2008). Daring to look: Dorothea Langes photographs and reports from the field. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Read More