Dorothea Lange went to a school of photography in New York City, she took a class that was taught by Clearance H. White. She worked with many New York photographers who had studios right here in San Francisco, one of them being Arnold Genthe. In 1918 Dorothea Lange moved to San Francisco, and by just the next year she had opened Successful portrait studio. . Although her studio was here in San Francisco she lived in Berkeley across the bay, for the remainder of her life. She had a family; she was married to a western painter, Maynard Dixo, with whom she had two sons, one by the name of Daneil Rhoades Dixon, and the other John Eagles Feather Dixon. Dorothea Lange’s name was originally Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn, but after her father abandoning her and her family at age twelve, she took up her mother’s maiden name instead. When Dorothy Lange was very young she contracted a disease called polio, she was seven years of age. This disease left her with a bad right leg and a limp for the rest of the life. This is what she thought and said about her injured leg "It formed me, guided me, instructed me, helped me and humiliated me," "I've never gotten over it, and I am aware of the force and power of it."
Sometime in December 1935 Dorothea Lange got a divorce from her Husband and got remarried to an agricultural economist named Paul Schuster Taylor. He was a professor of Economics at a university in California Berkley. He helped in teaching Dorothea Lange in social and political matters. Paul and Dorothea were a team when documenting, with Paul interviewing and Dorothea photographing. Dorothea would take photos of poverty in rural areas as well as very populated areas, like San Francisco. They did this as a team for five years gathering “economic data” along with explanatory photos.
The types of photos that Dorothea Lange took were called photojournalism. This means she was a journalistic photographer. His images would tell the story of what the country was going through at that time. She took it on as her job to get the small details in her photos to get a message along, weather it was hunger, sadness, death, depression. Photojournalism means that you have to take into account, timelines, objectivity, and narrative aspects of what is going on.
Timeliness — the images have a meaning in the context of a recently published record of events.
Objectivity — the situation implied by the images is a fair and accurate representation of the events they depict in both content and tone.
Narrative — the images combine with other news elements to make facts relatable to the viewer or reader on a cultural level.
Photo journalists are very much like broadcasters, the have to be ready whenever need, in order to get the shots that are needed they also have to sometimes enter dangerous situations.
During the Depression the US look to photojournalism and documentary photos for help in during the depression. Dorothea Lange being one of those people, she took photos of the life of and situations of dust bowl farmers. She also took it apron herself to photograph the poverty in the city streets of San Francisco. She photographed the bead lines she saw out front of her studio, those pictures were what go to her an invitation to join the project as a whole.
All of Dorothea Lange’s photos were taken in black and white. She photographed workers in the country side and took many manning full photos from the city. In her photos there always seems to be a message conveyed most connecting back to the depression, witch as she showed skillfully affected everyone.
