Photography has been around for so long and it has been one of the best ways to express feelings and allows you to show how you see the world through images. In a recent trip the New York Public Library we went to see an exhibition of incredible photography from the past. The exhibition itself was great I love the way they had the photos organized. They had all different styles of photography from the past, which you could see and I was really impressed with all the photos. There were many photographs that got my attention and I will talk about three photographs from the exhibition that stood out the most to me. The photographs I did my research on were “Migrant Mother”, “Monolith Face of Half Dome” and “Children Watching Plane Land”.

When we first got to the exhibit I was excited to see what kind of photographs and as we were walking around with the tour lady explaining to us the images there was one photograph that really got my attention. The photograph is called “Migrant Mother” which was photographed in a camp in Nipomo, California by Dorothea Lange in 1936, it is one of her best know photographs. This photograph was taken during the Great Depression during a time when many Americans were struggling, the picture is composed of a women and children at a migrant peapickers’ camp in Nipomo, California. During this time Dorothea was employed under the Resettlement Administration for Roy Stryker.

Dorothea Lange had visited this camp while traveling, she had seen the women and was drawn to her immediately while she never ask her name or history all she knew was her age which at the time was 32. The photograph itself is in black and white and Dorothea Lange use a 4x5 view camera to take the photo. What stood out the most to me when I first saw it was the expression in the women’s face she looks worried, she has a frown on her face and how the two kids had there heads on her shoulder covering there face while she holds her baby in her hands you can see and feel that they are struggling going through a tough time. It’s a very simple image photographed yet so powerful sending a strong message. In face this photograph after it was taken immediately appeared in San Francisco News, which resulted in food being sent to the camp.

Another photograph that caught my eye was this landscape photograph called “Monolith Face of Half Dome” which was taken by Ansel Adams in 1927 in the Yosemite National Park. Adams was well known as a landscape photographer and for his depiction of the mountains in the Yosemite. He first recorded the Half Dome with his Kodak Box Brownie back when he was 14 years old in 1906 and 11 years later would be when he took the photo of the Half Dome. Ansel Adams had become an environmentalist during this time and used his photographs as a record so that we could see what many of these national parks looked like before human traveling and intervention.

Ansels style was to photograph anything related to the environment like rocks, mountains and trees. For this photograph Ansel undertook a four thousand foot climb of snow where he would setup and used 6 1/2 x 8 1/2 inch Korona view camera with two lenses, which were Tesar formula lens of 8 1/2 focal length, two filters, a wooden tripod and twelve Wratten Panchromatic glass plates that were his negatives for his “Monolith Face of Half Dome” photograph. The filters used were red Wratten No.29 filter and for the exposure he had to leave the shutter open for 5 seconds but luckily there was no wind to disturb the camera during the long exposure.

The third photograph I chose stood out to me the most was called “children watching plane land” and it was taken by Henry Ries at Templehof, Berlin Airport in 1948. Henry Ries was born in Berlin but fled the country to avoid Hitler and would actually return later to take strong images of the post Germany while he worked for the New York Times. His most memorable photograph was the “children watching plane land” and this was