This picture is of Florence Owen Thompson, a 32 year old mother of 7. Hard work, many children and the great depression has been hard on her - you can see it in her eyes in the second picture and in the lines in her face. She is a peapicker in California and this picture was taken in 1936.
I was drawn to this picture because of the emotion I feel in her face - it breaks the rules of 3rds - which I like - and it absolutely works that she is front and center. It is about her - what is she thinking - is she tired - how will she feed her family? etc... I forever was drawn to landscape images - really shying away from people, don't get me wrong - i like people - but find it hard to just walk up and say "Can i take your picture" ( I would prefer to take pics of animals - they don't seem to have the hang ups about getting their picture taken) but when a picture makes you feel someones grief, anger, frustration, love, etc... - It is beautiful and makes me want to take more photographs of people.
Enjoy the video.
Below is another link regarding this famous picture - I'm amazed at the more I search the more I find. It's amazing how a photograph can affect the masses. I had no idea how famous this picture was until I started looking deeper and the "untold" story behind it. I won't rewrite it here but if you are interested check out the link below. I still like this picture - it's just too bad that it may have been taken under false pretenses by Lange.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/nov/19/american-pastoral/
It's really hard not to be moved by Lange's migrant mother image. Although I have heard that there was a newspaper interview with the mother in the image much later in her life where she was very hard on Lange for taking the image - no one really wants to be remembered at their most vulnerable. It would be interesting to find the article - I'll keep an eye out.
ReplyDeleteI agree - it is a very visually moving image - that and the fact that she is younger than me - crazy. I did a bit of searching and posted another link - it's not the "offical" article but another view point about this picture and the agenda behind. very intersting how a picture can affect so many.
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