Margaret Bourke-White

Title: March of the Dynamos

Artist: Margaret Bourke-White

Medium: Photograph, gelatin silver print

Year: 1928



Give a brief description of the movement, photographer, or term you researched. How are they significant to the history of photography?



From her naturalist father, an engineer and inventor, Margaret White claims to have learned perfectionism; from her mother, she claims to have developed an unapologetic desire for self-improvement. Her interest in photography began as a young woman's hobby, supported by her father's enthusiasm for cameras. She started a commercial photography studio and did architectural and industrial photography.



Her success was due to her skills with both people and her technique. Her experience at Otis Steel Company is a good example. The Otis security people were reluctant to let her shoot for many reasons: First, steel making was a defense industry, so they wanted to be sure national security was not affected. Second, she was a woman and in those days people wondered if a woman and her delicate cameras could stand up to the intense heat, hazard, and generally dirty and gritty conditions inside a steel mill. When she got permission, the technical problems began. Black and white film in that era was sensitive to blue light, not the reds and oranges of hot steel—she could see the beauty, but the pictures were coming out all black. She solved this problem by bringing along a new style of magnesium flare (which produces white light) and having assistants hold them to light her scenes. Her abilities resulted in some of the best steel factory pictures of that era, and these earned her national attention.



In 1930, she became the first Western photographer allowed to take pictures of Soviet industry. She was hired by Henry Luce as the first female photojournalist for Life magazine in 1936. Bourke-White was the first female war correspondent and the first woman to be allowed to work in combat zones during World War II. She had a knack for being at the right place at the right time: She interviewed and photographed Mohandas K. Gandhi just a few hours before his assassination. Eisenstaedt, her friend and colleague, said one of her strengths was that there was no assignment and no picture that was unimportant to her.



Write a short personal reaction to the movement, photographer or term you researched. What is interesting or not interesting about the work.



Margaret Bourke-White broke many amazing barriers to get her photographs She was relentless at her pursuit of her craft. The picture called 'March of the Dynamos' caught my eye, it is very similar to a photograph I took 5 years ago at the Hoover Dam.





Name: Joe Ulwelling