WHAT IS DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY?
1936 --- Florence Owens Thompson, 32, a poverty-stricken migrant mother with three young children
Documentary photography has been used for many years now to document significant people, places, an important time period, and the list could go on. Photography is a visual art that can stand on its own with a simple glance, nothing needed to be explained. Many of us can look at a picture and go back into time, re-live the moment, remember exactly a precise emotion, and this is why photography is one of the best arts we have until this date. Unfortunately we aren’t immortal, at some point in time our story ends only to leave behind history, memories, and maybe some great photography to share with the future generations. Documentary photography is fascinating because it can take anyone out of their time capsule and re-tell stories like the holocaust, wars, immigration, significant times we should never forget. You can’t tell history with out great photography. The beautiful thing about Documentary Photography is capturing the moment and freezing forever.
Dorothea Lange was a very successful and influential American documentary photographer. Lange is best known for her work attributed in the Great Depression. She worked closely with the Farm Security Administration to shed light on “the poor and the forgotten”, displaced farm workers and migrant workers.
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