Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/02/28
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]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. |