Photo Essay Unit

1)  How do the details in each image differ?  Be specific; describe the changes in good visual detail.

    - These four pictures are all of the same exact people, but they differ in little ways. The first picture is a wide shot of the family in their small tent with a large expanse of land in the background.  The next shot is of the mother and her two children in with an empty plate in the foreground, which could signify them starving. The next shot more closely examines the mother and her children, showing their depression and helplessness. The last picture shows the mother as two of her children rest their heads on her shoulders, so we are focusing in mainly on the mother.

2)  Does your perception of the people in the photograph change with each image?

    - No, my perception does not change regarding people being photographed from each picture aside from the last picture. The first three pictures all show a family in trouble as they sit in a tent with a wasteland behind them. The last picture however doesn't show a background and therefore or an empty plate and therefore does not allude to a time of depression but rather the mother taking care of her children.

3)  Consider the artistic decisions Lange made and how those decisions/strategies elicited a desired emotional response from the viewer.  Do you think the subjects in the photograph were instructed how to pose or did Lange capture them as they were?

    - I believe that the photographer positioned the subjects in a certain way in each photo. Some of the actions are uncomfortable like the woman in the first picture resting her head on the chair as she sits on it and the child resting his head on his mother in the third picture. I believe that, in the foreground,  the plate, signifying a lack of food, was definitely a decision made by the photographer, as well as how the children were resting.

4)  Which image did you find most sympathetic and why?

    - I found the image with the plate in the foreground as the most sympathetic image because it shows hunger as well as a weary child and a helpless baby being held by its mother. This image shows sadness, a needing to stick together as a family.

5)  The photographs are presented as "a series."  Does your emotional response to the photographs change as the composition changes?

    - My emotional response does not change much as I move through these. I experience sadness and sympathy for all of these images, especially because I knew beforehand, what they pertain to.

6)  How could these images be used as arguments?

    - These images could be used as an argument as a way of trying to prevent something like this ever happening again. The sadness brought by these pictures is enough to persuade a person, a society, and a world, to never let anything like the Great Depression happen again.