Daring to Look : Dorothea Langes Photographs and Reports from the Field

English

ISBN: 0226769852

EAN: 9780226769851

Category: Photography / Individual Photographers / General/Business & Economics / Economic Conditions/Business & Economics / Industries / Agribusiness/Business & Economics / Economic History/Travel / United States / General/

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Release Date: 09/30/2009

Synopsis: Near the end of her career, Dorothea Lange lamented, No country has ever closely scrutinized itself visually. . . . I know what we could make of it if people only thought we could dare look at ourselves. Lange, however, did look, unflinchingly turning her lens on the despair, degradation, and greed unleashed by the Great Depression, and her photographs for the New Deals Farm Security Administration have become the defining images of that time, capturing a country and a people on the brink of cataclysmic change. But the iconic images we all know dont come close to telling the whole story. Lange viewed her photographs as part of sequenced narratives, contextualized and enriched by her descriptive captionswithout which, she wrote, half the value of fieldwork is lost.Daring to Lookpresents never-before-published photos and captions from Langes fieldwork in California, the Pacific Northwest, and North Carolina during 1939. Langes images of squatter camps, benighted farmers, and stark landscapes are stunning, and her captionswhich range from simple explanations of settings to historical notes and biographical sketchesadd unexpected depth, bringing her subjects and their struggles unforgettably to life, often in their own words. When Lange was dismissed from the Farm Security Administration at the end of 1939, these photos and field notes were consigned to archives, where they languished, rarely seen. WithDaring to Look, Anne Whiston Spirn not only returns them to the public eye, but sets them in the context of Langes pioneering life, work, and struggle for critical recognitionfirmly placing Lange in her rightful position at the forefront of American photography.

Awards: PSP Prose Awards – null 

Excerpt: Unknown Property Excerpt

Daring to Look : Dorothea Langes Photographs and Reports from the Field

Illustrated: Yes

Format: Paperback

Height: 0.9 inches

Width: 8.5 inches

Length: 10.5 inches

Weight: 41.34 oz

Pages: 376