A CAMERA OF HER OWN

Adapted from Fireworks, Tle.

Mrs Foxy

A Camera of Her Own

A Camera of Her Own

What does the title evoke to you ?

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Anticipation

Meet Dorothea Lange

Your Mission

A brief history of the photography

Picture that !

Introducing Margaret Bourke-White

Sweet Caress

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• Let's recap with a true or false !

• Watch the last part of the video and explain who this third inventor was and what he did. 3'30 s -> the end

• Watch the third part of the video and present the inventions of Henry Fox Talbot and Louis Daguerre. 1'58 s -> 3'30 s

• Watch the second part of the video and complete the timeline. 51 s -> the end

The goal is to take one's reflection in the mirror and freeze it in there.

• Watch the first part of the video and explain the goal of the photography. 00 s -> 51 s

A Brief History of the Photography

* Analyse the photo. (ex: purpose of the photo, message...)

Margaret Bourke-White Atop Chrysler Building, Oscar Graubner, 1935.

* Describe the photo. (ex: visible elements, colours, place...)

Introducing Margaret Bourke-White

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b) Take some notes about what you hear.

This is a documentary.

a) Find what type of document it is.

Watch the video a first time.

Introducing Margaret Bourke-White

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a) She was the first female photographer or the first woman to be allowed into a combat zone with a camera during World War II (the first American woman toserve as a war photojournalist) and the first female photographer for Life magazine. b) She was one of the most respected photojournalists of the 1930s and 40s and covered some of the 20th century most important events.

Part One: a) Explain why Margaret White-Bourke is considered a pioneer. b) Give some details about who she was and the context.

Watch the video a second time.

Introducing Margaret Bourke-White

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a) She was born in the Bronx New York in 1904. Her parents were Minnie Bourke who was of Irish Catholic descent, and Joseph White, a non-practising Jew. Joseph White was an inventor and engineer. He worked for a company manufacturing printing presses. Minnie Bourke was full-time housewife but she had been educated at Pratt University. b) Her interest in cameras and photography came from her father.

Part Two: a) List as many information as possible about her family. b) Explain how Margaret Bourke-White discovered the photography.

Continue watching.

Introducing Margaret Bourke-White

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Margaret Bourke-White started studying herpetology (the study of reptiles) at Columbia University. Then, she studied at Cornell University but she left soon after. She attended 7 colleges. studying everything from paleontology to aesthetic dancing art and zoology. She studied photography with a teacher called Clarence. Her mother bought Margaret her first camera. she finally graduated from Cornell in 1927 with a Bachelor of Arts. Then, she moved to Cleveland Ohio where she opened up her own Studio concentrating on architectural and Industrial photography.

Part Three: Find information about her studies and her career.

Continue watching.

Introducing Margaret Bourke-White

Her real name was Florence Owen Thompson. She was a poor farmworker of 32 years old. She was a mother of 7 children. It refers to Lange's most famous photo shot in 1936 at a campsite in Nipomo, California.

d) Who was Migrant Mother ?

She photographed the poor farmers. She wanted to show their despair, their destitution and their struggle to survive and she wanted the viewer to sympathise with those she portrayed.

c) What did Lange take pictures of ? What for ?

She was "a documentary photographer", "a portrait photographer". She "worked for the Farm Security Administration". She started as a photographer for wealthy people in San Francisco.

a) Who was Dorothea Lange ?

She lived during the Great Depression during the 1930s.

b) In which context did she live ? Do some extra researches.

1. struggled to survive 2. poor/migrant workers 3. engraved 4. wealthy 5. sterile

Documentary photographer Dorothea Lange had a favourite saying: “A camera is a tool for learning how to see without a camera.” And perhaps no one did more to reveal the human toll of the Great Depression than Lange, who was born on this day in 1895. Her photographs gave us an unflinching — but also deeply humanizing — look at the struggles of displaced farmers, migrant labourers, share-croppers and others at the bottom of the American farm economy as it reeled through1 the 1930s. Lange worked for the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s, chronicling rural poverty across America and the agency's efforts to provide relief. Her most famous photo is often referred to as “Migrant Mother.” Shot in 1936 at a campsite full of unemployed pea pickers2 in Nipomo, Calif., the image features Florence Owen Thompson, a poor farmworker flanked by two of her seven children. [...] But you don't need to read Lange's notes to sense this desperation. So much is conveyed in the worry etched3 on Thompson's face, worn far beyond her 32 years at the time the photo was taken. Before she began documenting the travails of the poor, Lange was a portrait photographer for the well-to-do4 in San Francisco. So she knew that images of individuals would have far more emotional impact than those showing barren5 landscapes [...]. Maria Godoy, “How Dorothea Lange Taught Us To See Hunger And Humanity”, NPR, 2015.

Read the text and answer the questions:

Meet Dorothea Lange

a) Is the photo faithful to the description ? b) Discuss Lange's statement: “A camera is a tool for learning how to see without a camera.”

Go further:

Check your hypothesis by clicking on the white frame.

Migrant Mother

" Her most famous photo is often referred to as “Migrant Mother.” Shot in 1936 at a campsite full of unemployed pea pickers in Nipomo, Calif., the image features Florence Owen Thompson, a poor farmworker flanked by two of her seven children. [...] But you don't need to read Lange's notes to sense this desperation. So much is conveyed in the worry etched on Thompson's face, worn far beyond her 32 years at the time the photo was taken. "

Use the description of the text to draw 'Migrant Mother'.

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Go Further: Dome researches about the photographer you are in charge of.

When I say I want to photograph someone, what it really means is that I'd like to know them. Anyone I know I photograph. ― Annie Leibovitz

Photography can only represent the present. Once photographed, the subject becomes part of the past. ― Berenice Abbot

I still feel that my interest in photography has something to do with the aesthetic, and that there should be a little beauty in everything.― Imogen Cunningham

a) Choose ONE quotation. How do you understand the message of the photographer?

Describe and analyse the picture of the same author.

Picture that !

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This is the front cover of a book.

• What type of document is it ?

• Do some researches about this book.

• Make hypotheses about who the woman was.

• Describe what you can see.

Look at the picture.

Sweet Caress by William Boyd

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Self-portrait by Vivian Maier, 1979.

Your mission

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The editorial board of the Tate Modern debates about which female photographers and which of their photographs should be included in your photography book. You are a member of this editorial board. At the end of this unit, you must make a video trailer for the Tate Modern’s very first exhibition on female photographers. Include some iconic photos, thought-provoking comments and a word from the curator *. Be convincing!

What matters in photography is not so much the subject itself as the way it is represented, shown, and potentially enhanced or celebrated through photography, which reveals its hidden beauty or simply makes it look prettier than it is.

Photography is a great way of getting better acquainted with and understanding the people one takes pictures of. Portrait pictures should reveal someone’s personality.

Photographs capture fleeting, short-lived moments which are then frozen in time and become emblematic of a given period or era.

Picture 1: This photograph by Imogen Cunningham doesn’t show us any specific aspect of British or American culture. The only loose link that might be identified is the reference to the Brits’ taste for the macabre, and the appeal of the supernatural and the bizarre. This photo, in which a human hand spookily appears among dangling plastic arms, might even have been taken from a horror movie. Picture 2: Annie Leibovitz's photo presents us with Queen Elizabeth II at home in Buckingham Palace, surrounded by her beloved dogs. She appears rather relaxed, standing outside on the stairs of her ancestral residence. The medieval architecture which serves as backdrop might be interpreted as a reference to the British monarchy as a firmly established institution that rests on solid ground. Picture 3: Abbot’s photograph of New York City offers us a representation of a typically American urban environment, often compared to a concrete jungle. The soaring skyscrapers which tend to dwarf the older and smaller buildings symbolise modernity and the aspiration ofthe city and its inhabitants to a better, more comfortable life.