`Photography a universal language' - Daniel Dixon on Dorothea Lange
5 May 2005

Daniel Dixon, together with his wife Dixie, today gave a talk on his mother, Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) one of the world's most famous photographers. He came to Dublin City University at the invitation of Gerry Mullins, lecturer in the School of Communications, who collaborated with Daniel on producing a collection of the photos taken by Dorothea in Ireland in 1954. This collection, `Dorothea Lange's Ireland' (1996) went on to become a `bestseller' and was also the basis for the documentary film `Photos to Send', which won Best Documentary awards in Galway and nine other film festivals around the world.

While Dorothea is most associated with her iconic photographs of the Great Depression in the USA, Gerry Mullins highlighted the many other dimensions to her work. Her subject matter, a man standing in a field in Co Clare, for example, may appear simple on the one hand, but closer inspection will reveal the `sense of the man', his personality, his life, his closeness to the soil. She captures the essence of the man's life, from the stitching on his clothes to the cattle on the hillside in the background, the cottage he lives in, the bog and turf on which he stands and from which he makes his living.

vDaniel Dixon explained that it was his mother's passion that brought her to Ireland on a `pilgrimage'. While she was known as a photojournalist, she was passionate about many subjects. `Dorothea Lange's Ireland' was an attempt to widen the narrow view of her genius. As a person, Dorothea was a complex and contradictory person, and her photos reflected this. She managed to capture the innocence and happiness of youth as well as the weariness and experience of old age.

In her early portraiture, she tried to reveal the character of her sitters as closely as possible, and believed in waiting to see what they would `give' the camera while she decided what to `take'. "Characteristically, her sitters would look straight into the camera, revealing the life behind the eyes which is as complicated and mysterious as your own", Daniel said. "Expressions", he said, "are understandable across the world, making photography a universal language".

Gerry Mullins can be contacted at gerry.mullins@dcu.ie