PHOTOGRAPHER’S JOURNEY.com

It’s not often I use the word “best” when it comes to photography. After all, photography is a subjective experience for the photographer and viewer. While certain universal qualities do add to a photograph’s power, ultimately it is up to each individual viewer to decide how the meaningfulness of a particular image.

But for me, Dorothea Lange’s photographs are some of the most powerful I have ever seen.

(click image for larger view)

Of course, she is most famous for the “Migrant Mother” photo she made in 1936 during the height of the depression. It is, I’d argue, among the most powerful photographic images ever made. But Lange’s portfolio goes well beyond that famous photo. She had been hired by the Farm Security Administration during the height of the depression, which put her in direct contact with the plight of the nation’s poor at that time. And while she could have made generic, somewhat distant photographs that a lesser artist might make, Lange’s images instead resound with tremendous humanity in every click of the shutter she ever made. She had a unique ability, it seems, to connect with the individuals she photographed.

It is, of course, a tremendous inspiration to look at the work of someone like Lange. Unlike someone such Ansel Adams, whose grand and intimate portraits of nature are unquestionably powerful, Lange’s work brings us a glimpse of the grandness and intimacy of the human spirit.

She was… simply the best.

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