Just arrived from Kansas, on highway going to potato harvest. Near Merrill, Klamath County, Oregon 1939

Dorothea Lange made this photograph, in Klamath County, Oregon. Look at these two kids, peering out, and imagine the scene. It’s the American West during the Depression. Lange was a documentary photographer, and her images always have this amazing quality of being both spontaneous and carefully composed. Think of the tarp that arches above them. Lange has framed these boys, and their hopeful faces, perfectly. You get a sense of resilience here, don't you? These kids are traveling with their family to pick potatoes. It couldn't have been easy. I wonder what they were thinking. What did they expect? What did they hope for? Lange’s work is often compared to the photography of Walker Evans, and you can definitely see that influence. But there's also a tenderness here that is very much her own.