Dorothea Lange and Steve Mc Curry: The Importance of Photography

Dorothea Lange and Steve Mc Curry are two very good photographers that have very simular tastes in art. But yet they are so different, Dorothea Lange is a historical photographer and Steve Mc Curry Is a geographical photographer. Dorothea Lange was an American documenter and photographers, Dorothea Lange’s first exhibition was held in 1934, thereafter her reputation as a skilled documentary photographer was established, she was born on the 26th of May 1895. She died on the 11th of October 1965. Steve McCurry is an American photographer, freelancer and photojournalist. His most famous photo is of the Afghan Girl, He was born on the 23 of April 1950 (Aged 69). The use of a camera in order to capture events, time, culture, or something that tells a story is referred to as documentary photography. As an amateur photographer myself, I found it interesting to explore how the past influences photographers to capture certain moments in time and the affect their childhood, families, or just personal experiences have had on their photography. Steve McCurry, and Dorothea Lange has impacted society and society’s knowledge of different cultures and areas of the world.

Dorothea Lange's poignant image of a mother and her children on the brink of starvation is as moving today as when it first appeared in 1936. Lange took five pictures of this striking woman, who lived in a makeshift shelter with her husband and seven children in a Nipomo, California, and pea-picker's camp. Within twenty-four hours of making the photographs, Lange presented them to an editor at the San Francisco News, who alerted the federal government to the migrants' plight. The newspaper then printed two of Lange's images with a report that the government was rushing in 20,000 pounds of food, to rescue the workers

In June of 1985, a girl’s eyes pierced the world. On the cover of National Geographic, a girl with striking, bright green eyes. People who saw the magazine were forced to stare into her eyes and see her experiences and feel her scorn. In 1936, on the front of the San Francisco Times, a woman was pictured. A slender 32 year old mother with an infant in her lap and two of her other children burying their faces in her shoulders. The look on her lined face shows multiple things: Desperation, fear, sadness, resignation. One thing that these two pictures and these two women have in common is that it was a long time before the world knew who they truly were. In the titles of the photos they are simply identified by what they were seen as: A girl and a mother. However, they were leagues above those simple labels. Both had lived through some of the harshest parts of their country’s history. The girl lived during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, she was an orphan, and she fled the country.

In the Afghan girl the art elements and principles were Tone Emphasis/Focal Point, Balance, Unity, Contrast, Movement/Rhythm and Pattern/Repetition and then in the migrant mother there was tone, contrast, unity, line, shape, form. There were a couple of similarities between the two photos. The photograph popularly known as “Migrant Mother” has become an icon of the Great Depression. The compelling image of a mother and her children. Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California. Dorothea Lange took this photograph in 1936, while employed by the U.S. government's Farm Security Administration (FSA) program, formed during the Great Depression to raise awareness of and provide aid to impoverished farmers.

Both of the photos had hope and strength they were both in the poverty stage. In Steve’s picture they had clothing problems and poverty it was very sad to see the photo because at the time there was a war in Afghanistan, most of the house’s had been destroyed by the war and most of them had nowhere to go and they had very little food and water because the military had taken most of it and so they had to leave the country. In Dorothea’s picture it was during the great depression and the whole family had hope and unity and strength it was in a very sad stage in the world. All they had was a little shack and there was 3 to 4 children living in this shack.

In this essay I worked on Dorothea Lange and Steve Mc Curry, Dorothea took one of my favourite pictures that I have ever seen and she called it the “Migrant Mother” and then Steve did a picture on an Afghan girl during the war in Afghanistan, they were associated with the Russian revolution. Everyone keep positive and the tried very hard to stay. I talked about what the picture means and the meaning behind it and why it is important.