Florence Owen Thompson and the birds
Writing a book review (to come) of Eamon McCabe’s ‘The Making of Great Photographs’, I came across this:
“Photographers today still work in the same way, many spending weeks getting to know the people they hope to photograph.”
Dorothea Lange notoriously spent scant minutes at the pea pickers’ camp, taking only 6 pictures, including the iconic Migrant Mother photograph. She definitely didn’t hang around to chat. Many weeks?
Florence Owen Thompson’s identity was made known in the early 1970s, after a letter she had written was published in a local newspaper. She was quoted as saying “I wish she hadn’t taken my picture. I can’t get a penny out of it. She didn’t ask my name. She said she wouldn’t sell the pictures. She said she’d send me a copy. She never did.”
Click and scroll down for a sound file recording of Mrs Thompson being interviewed back in 1979 by Bill Ganzell. Looking for Ganzell on the internet turned up this second recording. A woman of fortitude and wonderful cheekbones. Ten children, two of the three in Lange’s photographs speaking in the video at the top of the post.
So, to McCabe. Since his book is liberally sprinkled with witticisms and ironies, I can’t tell whether or not he knows the story, but it’s hard to imagine that he doesn’t. As Guardian pictures editor throughout the latter decade of the c20th, he was responsible for the look and feel of the one of the great quality newspapers in design terms, typographocal errors notwithstanding. But he can hardly be held responsible for continuing to make errors or assumptions made by picture desks back in the 1930s. Can he?
You’ll no doubt be pleased to know I’ve written to his publisher to ask him.
In a completely unrelated and rather elegant synchronicity, an email today from an American academic seeking schwag revealed a whole new world of discourse. His blog’s banner is this very photograph. Every picture tells a story. But is the story the same for Dorothea, for Florence, for you?
My somewhat frail and elderly mother and I were followed around our local market town several weeks ago by a young man with a camera eager enough to take our photograph to find himself hopping backwards. It is to add to a collection of ’street’ photography, many of which include tags like ‘fat’ or ‘chav’. He seems comfortable taking photographs of very young women giggling, and much older women grimacing at him. Very few men. I assume that’s because he regularly runs the risk of being punched.
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