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This title in other editionsDaring to Look : Dorothea Lange's Photographs and Reports from the Fieldby Anne Whiston Spirn
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments: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 Deal's 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 don't come close to telling the whole story. Lange viewed her photographs as part of sequenced narratives, contextualized and enriched by her descriptive captions — without which, she wrote, "half the value of fieldwork is lost." Daring to Look presents never-before-published photos and captions from Lange's fieldwork in California, the Pacific Northwest, and North Carolina during 1939. Lange's images of squatter camps, benighted farmers, and stark landscapes are stunning, and her captions — which range from simple explanations of settings to historical notes and biographical sketches — add 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. With Daring to Look, Anne Whiston Spirn not only returnsthem to the public eye, but sets them in the context of Lange's pioneering life, work, and struggle for critical recognition — firmly placing Lange in her rightful position at the forefront of American photography. Synopsis:Daring to Look presents never-before-published photos and captions from Dorothea 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 captions—which range from simple explanations of settings to historical notes and biographical sketches—add 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. With Daring 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 recognition—firmly placing Lange in her rightful position at the forefront of American photography. “[A] thoughtful and meticulously researched account of Langes career. . . . Spirn, a photographer herself, traces Langes path, visiting her locations and subjects in a fascinating series of ‘then and now shots.”—Publishers Weekly
“Dorothea Lange has long been regarded as one of the most brilliant photographic witnesses we have ever had to the peoples and landscapes of America, but until now no one has fully appreciated the richness with which she wove images together with words to convey her insights about this nation. We are lucky indeed that Anne Whiston Spirn, herself a gifted photographer and writer, has now recovered Langes field notes and woven them into a rich tapestry of texts and images to help us reflect anew on Langes extraordinary body of work.”—William Cronon, author of Natures Metropolis About the AuthorAnne Whiston Spirn is professor of landscape architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A photographer herself, she is the author of The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human Design and The Language of Landscape. Table of ContentsPreface Prologue “A Discoverer, a Real Social Observer” Dorothea Lange One Dorothea Lange and the Art of Discovery Anne Whiston Spirn Two Photographs and Reports from the Field, 1939 Dorothea Lange Editors Note California (January to May) The Highway The Farm Factory North Carolina (July) The Farmers, Black and White Pacific Northwest (August-October) The Migrant Life The Government and the Farmers The Cutover Land The Irrigated Desert Three Then and Now Anne Whiston Spirn Appendix A Chronology of Dorothea Langes Life Appendix B Description of New Deal Organizations and Programs Appendix C Documents Submitted by Lange with General Captions Appendix D Key to Negatives and General Captions Appendix E Additional General Captions from 1939 Notes Essay on Sources List of Illustrations Index What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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