The Contexet Behind Perspective
... uses her “…keen visual and auditory perceptiveness…combined with a strong belief in human benevolence, kindness, and justice…” to photograph the most honest picture of what society was like (Gawthrop 1). She used her values and ideals to photograph exactly what was most important to her. Also, Lange was handicapped by a chronic polio virus as a child and her father left the family, leaving the mother to care for the children (Perchick 1). Lange lived a life of poverty and sickness and, too, suffered the pain of lack of money and nourishment. This experience allowed her to understand the lives of the people she photographed. In those people, she saw herself as a child. In her subject eyes, she saw the same expression she once had. This familiarity allowed her to relate to the subjects around her, and enabled her to find the expressions that most captured the overall sufferings of the Great Depression victims. This supports Coles and his claim that documentaries are purely objects of the producer’s life. They are perfect mirror images of the experiences of the documentarian. Were it not for Lange’s sufferings as a child, she would not have been able to relate to her subjects or capture the essence of that society in the people eyes and facial expressions. Lange also shows how documentarians weed and edit their work to illustrate what they really want to show. Coles argues how photographers alter the viewer’s perspective, and guide their eyes into what they want us to see. Perspectives change once information or other parts of a picture are edited out. Lange does this by cropping out unnecessary areas of her photos. According to Coles, Lange “…cropped her work in order to make it more accessible to her anticipated viewers” (187). She only left what drew the most attention and reaction from the viewer. Her photographs are all about capturing the most emotional expression of the context that person was in, so she zeros our perspectives in on exactly what she sees. Another point Coles argues is that documentarians not only attempt to connect to the people photographed, but to the viewers as well. He says that documentation is a journey to make a connection with the people we hope to understand (218). After all, the whole point of a documentary is to persuade viewers of a certain stance, so it is important for photographers, such a Lange, to find that connection. According to Coles, this connection enables us to “learn about their lives” in hopes of affecting some sort of emotional reaction or change (184). This is exactly what Lange does. She captures the person’s visage that will most draw our attention. She allows us to find a connection between and her subjects. In reaction to effecting change, she commented, “I tried very hard…to make a place where…what I did would count” (Gawthrop 2). She wanted to make sure that her work promised a “…lasting, positive effect on the lives of other human beings.” She effected change by working for the Farm Security Administration, photographing the poor and unemployed to bring the government’s attention to their needs (Perchick 2). Her famous photo, “Migrant Mother”, brought attention to the poor families in rural California, places where no one bothered to care about until they saw the pained expression of the mother. Gawthrop argues that the “…power of her photographic eye was able to enhance the lives of a few homeless migrants” (Gawthrop 2 ). The powerful effect of Lange’s photographs not only connected the lives between her and her subjects, but between the viewers and her subjects as well. Cole’s main argument is that documentation is a journey over time. It is a “…passage across boundaries…a movement toward the sacred truth enshrined…in the living hearts of those others whom we can hear, see, and get to understand” (218). Through his own research, he supported this claim that documentation follows a path from an unknown subject, to someone who we are able to make a connection to and understand better. Documentation is all about informing the viewers about a certain perspective. How we come to perceive the people we see is the journey from oblivion to understanding. For instance, Dorothea Lange sought out people whom she had no interaction with before, and documented their lives into something everybody can see and respect. According to Gawthrop, s...