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Thursday, September 6, 2012

Photo Analysis- The Migrant Mother


The photo above may look very familiar to many people. This image is known as the Migrant Mother, captured by Dorothea Lange during the Great Depression in 1936. 

At first glance, the viewer gets a great understanding of the sense of concern and anxiety the mother is feeling simply by looking at her face. Dorothea Lange's goal as a photographer was to show another side of poor people, she wanted to show "their pride, their strength [and] their spirit". And this image does just that. It is apparent that the mother has been through a lot but there is still a spark of hope that is portrayed as she keeps her head up high, hoping that things will get better. Lange sent this image to a newspaper to expose how people were living and soon after food was sent to these suffering people.

The image I posted is in black and white, but there is a colored version as well. However, the black and white version evokes more emotion and gives more power to the scene depicted. There is more of a focus on light and shadow rather than various colors, but because the image is in black and white it does not allow for colors to distract the viewer from the intensity of the image. Moreover, the light source seems to be coming from somewhere directly in front of the mother. Her face is the lightest point of the image, which draws the viewers eyes immediately to her face. 

A majority of the space in this photo is taken up by the mothers pyramidal shaped body. Her children are on either side of her, which frames her figure in a way that again draws attention to the mother, proving that she is the subject of the photo.

Now to focus on the purpose of this blog...Is this photo real or fake? I believe that because of the overpowering emotion and pain depicted by the mother as well as the rawness and sincerity in her face, it allows one to believe that this image must be real. I feel as if there is no way a paid model could ever convey such sincere emotion as well as someone who is actually going through something so horrific. Therefore proving that this image is a depiction of real life and not some made up scene. 

<<http://picturingamerica.neh.gov/downloads/pdfs/Resource_Guide_Chapters/PictAmer_Resource_Book_Chapter_18B.pdf>>

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