Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/02/28

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Migrant Mother sighted--and P.O.'d
From: "Bill Larsen" <ohlen@lightspeed.net>
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 12:47:23 -0800

I believe that at the time Migrant Mother was photographed in Nipommo in 1936.
Lange was working for the State of California with funding from the Farm
Security Agency --- the agency name changes are a little confusing without the
source in front of me.  The project was to document the plight of migrant
farmworkers in California.

I believe that the funding source was the federal government and all rights
resided with them.  Following her career gets very confusing because she
basically was not considered a good photographer in that her work was
inconsistent --- her field notes sparse --- and she tended to lose the
negatives from major projects.

I believe that "Migrant Mother" is a cropped photograph.  As far as I can
determine, Lange shot with a 4 x 5 Graflex with extension bellows and
sometimes with a Rolleiflex.

"White Angel Breadline" was taken in 1932 while she still had her commercial
San Francisco studio.  You might want to peruse a copy of Milton
Meltzer's ---_Dorothea Lange:  A Photographer's Life_, 1978.  If you sometimes
feel that your technique is not first rate, you might feel a little better and
get a little more perspective.

Tim Atherton writes:


|Of course, I wonder how much Dorothea Lange directly made from it? It was
|shot for the FSA (or something similar?) and was owned by them, and was
|probably, public domain as Govt. work. Hence all the FSA images in the
|Library of Congress.
|