Arts
In this first episode, Mark and David look back at the recent major exhibition of Dorothea Lange's work at London's Barbican, and briefly discuss Nikon's new mirrorless cameras, whilst sampling a couple of nice beers and working on their microphone technique. We've posted up some of the images we discuss on our Pinterest page for this episode. Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing was the first UK exhibition of the pioneering American social documentary photographer Dorothea Lange (1895–1965). It presents Lange as a critical and influential voice in twentieth-century photography, an activist and early environmental campaigner and a founding figure of photojournalism. Although Lange is famous for her evocative portraits of Dust Bowl migrant workers, and the almost era-defining Migrant Mother image (one of 6 taken in 10 minutes), her work encompassed much more. The exhibition, divided into three sections (Great Depression, World War II and Postwar California), also briefly highlighted her early career as an in-demand studio photographer in San Francisco. Lange's images from WWII are just as powerful as those from the depression. Pictures of Japanese-Americans under internment are particularly moving and topical. The Lange exhibition was so large and thought-provoking that perhaps it was almost too ambitious a subject for our first podcast, and we may well return to discuss her work at a later date. Also we didn't have a chance to touch on the accompanying exhibition of contemporary photographer Vanessa Winship, whose work was fantastic. We hold regular photo meet-ups in central London, all levels welcome - see Meetup for details. For more information about us and forthcoming podcasts, visit the PhotoChilli website, or get in touch on Twitter. Music credit: DJ Quads