Dorothea Lange Biography

Dorothea Lange was an American documentary photographer, photojournalist and co-founder of a photography magazine ‘Aperture’. She is best remembered for her Great Depression-era photographs highlighting the plight of the poor, the forgotten and migrant workers. She had the knack of capturing poignant images that evoked feelings of compassion amongst the public. As a child, she was not academically inclined and suffered two tragedies in the form of polio and the abandonment by her father. She studied photography at Columbia university and interned with renowned photographers. She acquired a studio and began her career photographing the social elite in San Francisco. At the onset of the Great Depression, she trained her lens on the streets and her pictures under the employment of a government agency became her most famous works till date. Later, she also covered the internment of Japanese Americans in the aftermath of the attack on PearlHarbor. In later years, she travelled to other countries on assignments. She is also credited with influencing the evolution of documentary photography. She has been conferred with several awards after her death.