Analysing "Striving for normalcy" by Mara, Paula C. & Lucía R.

“Striving for normalcy”

Dorothea Lange

Mara, Paula Cutrín and Lucía.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

2

Biography of the photographer

2

Observation Skills

3

Action

3

Setting

3

Theme

3

Clothing

4

Pose

4

They are standing and have a sad expression on in their faces.

4

Technical Knowledge

5

Point of view

5

Lightning

5

Framing

6

Cropping

6

Conclusion

7

Bibliography

8

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● Introduction We choose this photo because we think that there is an important message behind the photograph and it deserve be one oficina the best photographer if the world, because if the photographer hadn’t taken this photo we wouldn’t know how people lived in this time period. ● Biography of the photographer One of the documentary photographers of the 20th century, Dorothea Lange was born on May 26, 1895, in New Jersey.

Her father, Heinrich Nutzhorn, was a lawyer, and her mother, Johanna, worked at home.

Her parents divorced, Dorothea grew to blame the separation on her father and eventually dropped his surname and took her mother’s maiden name, Lange.

Dorothea decided to pursue photography as a profession after working in a NYC photo studio. In 1917, she also studied with Clarence Hudson White at his prestigious school of photography.

Lange passed away from esophageal cancer in October 1965.

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● Observation Skills ● Action In the foreground we can see five children taking water for their parents, maybe because they don’t have water in their house. They have a toy car to carry the water bottles. In the background we can see a car, an old house and some trees. The children are maybe twelve (the older) and five (the youngest) and we think they are siblings.

While two of the girls are collecting water in a milk can, the youngest child has a toy baby in her hand and the child is observing them next to the cart in which they will transport the water. ● Setting We think the picture was taken​ ​between 30's and 40's because the car is old

and it was taken in an american town because it seems like a time of war, the toy car is a typical american​ ​one and the fountain and the clothes appear to be old.

● Theme We think it's a male chauvinist society because only the girls are working. We think that the photographer is thinking why only the girls were working, because there is a boy too but he was only looking how his sisters were working and the boy are younger than the girls but in that time only women do housework. We think that this is because the boys are younger than the girls but in that time only women do housework.

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● Clothing Maybe they are a poor family, because they are dressed like middle class people of the time, the girls are wearing dresses and the boy a trouser and a shirt. It is known that they are middle class because their clothes are not broken, but they are not of the upper class because otherwise they would not have to go and look for water.

● Pose They are standing and have a sad expression on in their faces.

We think they have bad feelings. They are sad and tired.

The ​children do not look very happy because of the situation they are living and as the photo is in black and white it makes everything sad.

● Expresion The photograph suggests that with the passage of time the world has changed a little because now people think that boys are better than girls.

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● Technical Knowledge We think that the photograph was taken by a woman, since it was normal that women to do all the domestic work and that is why a woman wants to defend women’s rights, the photograph would be published in a magazine. Probably the photograph was taken in the 30´s; it represents poverty in the war. The photograph transmits sadness, because the children don’t have to work, they need to play. ● Point of view The photographer’s point of view is centered, she takes the photo focusing on the center where the children and the fountain are.

We think that she was opposite the fountain and standing when she took the photo.

The photographer took the picture from the right side.

The effect produced by the image is of sadness, injustice… bad feelings because in the photo there are poor little girls working. ● Lightning We believe that although you can’t appreciate the lighting well since it is black and white: The lighting is natural, because the image was taken outdoors and is coming from the left in the picture. The lighting is bright, soft and diffused.

The foreground of the picture is clear but the background is blurry.

The lighting draws our attention to the children and the fountain. There are five children, a fountain, a car, some trees and in front of the boy there is a cart in the frame.

5

● Framing We imagine outside the frame there are huts and a field. We think that the photographer chooses this frame because he wants us to focus on the environment of the children. ● Cropping The cropping draws our attention to the children.

There are photographers like Lewis Hine and ​Lázló Moholy​, who have pictures of people doing very hard jobs, the most part of them, women.

We don't see a metaphor but we see a symbol, in this period women weren't important for men, but we think that there are men who think that women are important so they took these photos to show women's importance.

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● Conclusion We chose this photo because if there were no photographers at that time we would not know in what conditions women lived and in this photo it is shown just as women, and girls, had to work.

We put that we chose that photo as one of the 10 best photographs in the world because it has a message that we think shows how important women are and protest against the machismo that exists in the world.

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● Bibliography ● Hine, Lewis; “Girl working at a cotton mill” ● Lago, Loly; “Visual Literacy - Practice” [​https://www.edu.xunta.gal/centros/iesfene/aulavirtual2/pluginfile .php/12218/mod_resource/content/3/Visual%20Literacy%20-%20 Practice%20%28No%20Information%29.pdf​] (29/05/2018) ● Lago, Loly; “Visual Literacy - Theory” [​https://www.edu.xunta.gal/centros/iesfene/aulavirtual2/pluginfile .php/12216/mod_resource/content/4/Visual%20Literacy%20-%20 Theory.pdf​] (29/05/2018) ● Lago, Loly; “Working as a Photo-Journalist” [​https://www.edu.xunta.gal/centros/iesfene/aulavirtual2/pluginfile .php/12214/mod_resource/content/1/Working%20as%20a%20Pho to-Journalist.pdf​] (29/05/2018) ● Lange, Dorothea; ”Biography” [​https://www.biography.com/people/dorothea-lange-9372993​] (Accessed 29/05/2018) ● Lange, Dorothea; “Madre migrante” (1936) ● Lange, Dorothea; “Mississippi Delta, Negro children” (1936) ● Lange,Dorothea;”Striving for normalcy” (1936) ● Moholy- Nagy, László; “Jealousy”

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