Wandering boy, Camp Carlton, California 1935

Dorothea Lange made this photograph, Wandering boy, Camp Carlton, California, using gelatin silver. The beauty of Lange’s work, for me, lies in its directness. It’s almost like she’s saying, “Here is a person, look at them.” There’s a raw simplicity in the image, like a charcoal sketch where the artist captures the essence of the subject with just a few lines. Take a look at the boy's shirt. It’s rumpled and creased, not unlike a canvas that has been overworked or a material that has been repeatedly folded. The texture is almost palpable, isn't it? You can almost feel the weight of the fabric. And the light, how it drapes over him. It's like she's painting with light, sculpting his form, revealing the contours of his body, the set of his shoulders, the turn of his head. Lange's photographs always make me think of Walker Evans, another photographer who found beauty in the everyday. They both had a way of turning the ordinary into something extraordinary. And that, for me, is what art is all about, don't you think?