Dorothea Lange was an American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Lange's photographs influenced the development of documentary photography and humanized the consequences of the Great Depression.
Lange in 1936
Lange in 1936 holding a Graflex 4×5 camera atop a Ford Model 40 in California, photographed by her assistant Rondal Partridge.
Lange's iconic 1936 photograph of Florence Owens Thompson, Migrant Mother
"Broke, baby sick, and car trouble!" (1937)
Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle events or environments both significant and relevant to history and historical events as well as everyday life. It is typically undertaken as professional photojournalism, or real life reportage, but it may also be an amateur, artistic, or academic pursuit.
John Beasly Greene's photo of the Abu Simbel temples, 1854
Bandit's Roost (1914) by Jacob Riis
Power house mechanic working on steam pump (1920) by Lewis Hine
Migrant Mother (1936) by Dorothea Lange, during the Great Depression