julie lives here.

You put your camera around your neck along with putting on your shoes, and there it is, an appendage of the body that shares your life with you. The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera. ~ Dorothea Lange

I’m reading an excellent biography about Dorothea Lange, who is best remembered for her moving and human portraits taken during the Depression on behalf of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) which was part of FDR’s recovery program to aid an economically devasted populace.

But before this time, in 1921, when the listing above was new, Dorothea was the most sought after portrait photographer for the elite echelons of San Francisco society. (I took this photo yesterday at the main library, where several shelves hold books of antique telephone and business directories… such a delight to peruse!) Dorothea was 26 years old and had only arrived from New York about three years prior. Her natural affinity for people and good luck enabled her to become very successful as a single woman in a non-traditional field quite quickly.

While reading this book, the chapters describing her studio and various homes in San Francisco made me want to go on a treasure hunt to find these addresses. But the transit of her life, as a portraitist turned street photographer is what has been truly fascinating and admirable. Learning to use the camera as a tool for social change is something that I know I think about often, as do many of my friends who are also street photographers. In reading this book, it’s not difficult to compare similar elements between the time of the Depression and now, if you are aware of the growing homeless population and the difficult burdens placed on women and children and families especially. There are places in the book where it doesn’t take much imagination to realize that our approach to dealing with hard economic times really hasn’t changed at all, nor have we learned the lessons of history to grow from. In truth, FDR’s New Deal did not put this country back on its feet (although the WPA and similar programs did help get people through some very difficult times), it was World War II that resparked our economy.

But I am getting away from what I wanted to say. San Francisco has a history of being a haven to artists, but it also was quite a center for photographic talent as well (Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Ansel Adams, Anne Brigman, etc.). I don’t know what it is—something in the air perhaps?—that fosters such development because from what I can tell, it’s still alive and well here. I feel very fortunate to be part of a local, adopted and eclectic family of photographers and artists that respect and encourage each other to do their best work.

I like to think that we’re carrying on a San Francisco tradition.

(Another telephone directory photo is posted here today.)