The interesting thing about the photo is that she almost didn't take it. She wanted to get somewhere and she passed up the camp where this woman was living. A thought or a voice in her head said, "Aren't you going to go visit that camp?" She said she instinctively turned her car around. She took seven or eight photos at the camp and sent the film to the state of California to be developed. She didn't make royalties off of this photo and came to believe that the photo belonged to the people.
Her interest was in documenting the human condition and wanted to be the conscience of Americans. She wanted to change the world through her work. Although she worked up to 20 hours a day operating her own portrait studio as she began to make her way in the world, she was more interested in real working people and documenting their struggles. She was able to document many important events in history. She lived though the great depression and was more interested in taking photos of breadlines than the work she was doing in her studio. She worked with her husband to document the dust bowl and the rush of many farmers to California.
She also was hired by the US government to document the Japanese internment camps. They wanted her to take pictures showing the camps as lovely places but when they saw the photographs she took, she was fired immediately. She saw herself as an artist and wanted to document the things as they really were. For this reason she didn't want to bow to the demands of the government and didn't think artists should have to bow to the requirements of advertisers either.
She believed that people needed to learn to see. This from a woman who regularly saw her photos from black and white negatives. People needed to see more than just the face value of something. They needed to understand things on an emotional level as well. Sometimes her work would make her sick to her stomach. It was hard for her to see how troubled some people in the world were. I guess that means she was a woman with great empathy for people.
She had many struggles in her life. She had polio as a child and walked with a limp for the rest of her life. Her father abandoned her family when she was 12 years old. When she was a young woman she was set to travel the world with a friend, but as they were about to leave, they were pick-pocketed and lost all of the money they saved for their trip. She lived through the great depression. In the end she struggled with bleeding ulcers, post polio syndrome and finally died of esophageal cancer at the age of 70.
Did I mention she worked hard? Her photographs were taken in 30 states and at 63 she traveled the world with her husband to take more (hopefully this helped make up for the trip she missed in her youth). She made the trip when her doctor's didn't know if she would survive till the end of it.
At the end of her life she was asked to prepare an exhibition of her life's work in New York. She wanted everything to be perfect and it gave her a reason to sort through all of her negatives and keep fighting for her life. Make's me wonder what I would have to showcase for my life's work. She died three months before the exhibition and her last words were, "Isn't it a miracle? It comes at the right time."
Well what can I say except Dorothea has left an impression on me. Although we have our differences, I feel like I can relate to her in many ways. I know that I would rather have the capability of feeling and understanding deeply rather than feeling numb even when life is painful. I too want to see the world as it really is instead of perfectly posed portraiture. I guess that is why I enjoy and often choose documentaries over blockbusters.
She has helped me to see more clearly that we all want freedom in our lives, but if we live our lives free of pain, heartache, rules, laws or restrictions, we would remain bound by own own ignorance and inexperience.
