Be An Instrument to Help Others See
Be An Instrument to Help Others See
Be That Instrument
“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”
Dorothea Lange
The story behind the above quote fascinates me.1 You might have seen the picture called Migrant Mother which was taken in 1960. It shows a woman named Florence Owens Thompson who looks a little distraught with her two young children and a baby sitting on her lap. The photo speaks of a time of loss and depression. The woman had recently sold the tires on her car to help gain some money. They ate food from a nearby field just to survive.
But this photo taken by Dorothea Lange was used to bring attention to the circumstances surrounding poverty and exploitation of migrant workers. Lange worked for the US Farm Security Administration and this photo helped bring assistance, aid, and care to the area.
Here is the picture called Migrant Mother:
The tools you use aren’t just for your craft. They are to help an unbelieving world, a world desperate for hope, to see and experience what is going on all around us. The instruments you have at your disposal help bring others face to face with the reality that is happening all around them.
Art has the power to shed light on the tragedies we are living through. They can also point out what is worth celebrating and rejoicing over because progress is happening.
But like Dorothea Lange, it is our job to point to those things and help others see what is really going on. That’s the difference you can make and the mindset that you should have.
And if you do these things right, your art will far outweigh and outlast anything you created just for yourself.
I first saw this quote in Carlos Whittaker’s book, Enter Wild, but then I read up on Dorothea Lange and was fascinated by this. Read more about it here. You can also hear more about the story here.