“A camera is a tool for learning how to see without a camera.”

–Dorothea Lange

On NPR today was an interview with Linda Gordon, author of “Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits.”  On Lange’s iconic portrait of the Great Depression, “Migrant Mother,” Gordon says this:

“…that’s really part of what Lange’s genius was about: That she could make pictures of very poor people — people very, very hard hit — and still make them extremely attractive individuals.”

I love this quote because it communicates a model for journalists.  What could have been a dreary image of the Depression is actually a picture of strength and resilience. In J-school we always talk about having a “cosmic point” in our stories.  That is, creating a tie-in for the reader, something that links most of humanity together.

Lange takes a bleak situation and turns it into a portrait of strength, or something we can all identify with.  It’s more effective than evoking pity or guilt in the audience, communicating what we can’t relate to or understand.  The photo shows a pensive mother with children draped by her side.  It’s a picture almost any parent can relate to, and that subtle link of the human struggle that makes this picture so effective.