Tag:documentary photography
The “Ken Burns Effect” is a distinctive technique in documentary filmmaking. But what is it? How did it become so well known, and who is Ken Burns?
Ken Burns, born on July 29, 1953, in Brooklyn, New York, is an acclaimed American filmmaker. In his career, he has been nominated for two Oscars and won five Emmys. He is known for his distinctive style of documentary filmmaking. His work has significantly impacted the genre, bringing history to life through a unique narrative and visual storytelling blend. Burns’s documentaries have covered a wide range of American history topics, earning him numerous awards and a place as one of the most influential documentarians of our time.
Early Life
Burns grew up in a family that valued education and the arts. His mother, Lyla Smith Burns, a biotechnician, and his father, Robert Kyle Burns, an anthropology professor, instilled in him a deep appreciation for history and storytelling. However, his childhood was also marked by tragedy. His mother died of breast cancer when he was just 11 years old. This event deeply affected him and later influenced his work.
Burns attended Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he studied under documentary filmmaker Jerome Liebling. Liebling’s emphasis on the power of the image and the importance of storytelling had a lasting impact on Burns. While at Hampshire College, Burns developed his distinctive style, using archival photographs, period music, and first-person narration.
Ken Burns effect
The “Ken Burns Effect” is a distinctive technique in documentary filmmaking. Due to its extensive use in Ken Burns’ work, it has become synonymous with his name. The technique involves panning and zooming on still photographs, creating a sense of movement and narrative flow within a static image. It allows filmmakers to bring photographs to life, making them more engaging and visually dynamic for the audience.
Ken Burns popularised this technique with his landmark documentary series “The Civil War” (1990). Burns was faced with the challenge of depicting historical events where moving footage was scarce or non-existent. To overcome this, Burns and his team innovated by using existing photographs in a new and captivating way. This method was not entirely new but had never been utilised so effectively and extensively in a documentary series of this scale.
While Burns popularised this technique, it has since been widely adopted in various forms of media, including documentaries, educational videos, and even corporate presentations. Many video editing software programs now include built-in tools labelled as the “Ken Burns Effect,” thus making it accessible to many users.
Exploration of American History through Documentaries
The Civil War
One of Burns’ most notable works is “The Civil War,” a nine-part series that took over five years to complete and aired on PBS in 1990. This groundbreaking documentary used more than 16,000 archival photographs, paintings, and newspaper images to tell the story of the American Civil War. Narrated by historian David McCullough and featuring voices of Morgan Freeman and Sam Waterston, “The Civil War” received critical acclaim and brought Burns widespread recognition. The series not only won numerous awards, including two Emmy Awards, but also drew an audience of 40 million viewers. This makes it one of the most-watched programs in the history of public television.
Baseball
Following the success of “The Civil War,” Burns continued to explore American history through a series of ambitious projects. His documentary “Baseball” (1994) is a comprehensive look at the sport’s history and its impact on American culture. Structured in nine episodes, or “innings,” it covers the evolution of baseball from its early days to the contemporary era. Like his other works, “Baseball” combines extensive research, rare footage, and compelling narration, making it not just a sports documentary but a broader reflection on American society.
Jazz
In 2001, Burns released “Jazz,” a ten-part series that chronicles the history of jazz music from its roots in blues and ragtime to its place in modern culture. The series highlights key figures in jazz, such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Miles Davis. It explores how the music evolved alongside significant social and cultural changes in America. “Jazz” was praised for its depth and breadth and its ability to convey the essence of the music and its creators.
The Vietnam War
In 2017, Burns co-directed “The Vietnam War” with longtime collaborator Lynn Novick. This ten-part, 18-hour documentary offers a comprehensive and unflinching look at one of American history’s most controversial and consequential events. It features testimony from nearly 100 witnesses, including many Americans who fought in the war and Vietnamese soldiers and civilians from both sides.
The series was lauded for its balanced and thorough approach, as well as for its emotional depth.
Beyond his documentaries, Burns has contributed significantly to the public understanding of history. He is known for his rigorous research and dedication to authenticity, often spending years on a single project. This meticulous approach ensures that his documentaries are informative, engaging, and thought-provoking. Burns’ work is characterised by a deep empathy for his subjects and a commitment to exploring the complexities of American history.
Burns’ influence extends beyond the screen.
Honours
He has received numerous honours, including the National Humanities Medal and honorary degrees from several universities. His documentaries are frequently used as educational tools in schools and universities, helping to teach American history in a dynamic and accessible way. Burns’ ability to bring history to life has inspired a new generation of filmmakers and historians.
Despite his many accolades, Burns remains deeply committed to his craft. He continues to explore new subjects and push the boundaries of documentary filmmaking. His recent projects include documentaries on the Roosevelts, country music, and the American National Parks.
Enduring Power of Storytelling
Ken Burns’ contribution to documentary filmmaking and historical storytelling is immense. Through his innovative techniques and unwavering dedication to authenticity, he has changed how we view history and has brought the past into vivid focus for millions of people. His work reminds us of the importance of understanding our history and the enduring power of storytelling to connect us to our collective heritage.
Dorothea Lange was born Dorothea Nutzhorn on May 26 1895, in Hoboken, New Jersey, U.S. Lange was an American documentary photographer famous for her portraits of displaced farmers and Dust Bowl migrants during the Great Depression. Her photos were among the first examples of documentary photography and photojournalism.
Early Years
At age seven, Lange survived a severe polio case, leaving her with a lifelong limp. Her father abandoned the family in 1907 when she was 12, and her mother reverted to her maiden name of Lange. At age seventeen, Lange began working as an office assistant for famous photographer Arnold Genthe and taking photography classes. In 1919, at 24, Lange left home with a friend to travel the world. However, the U.S. had just entered the war, which ruled out European travel. So instead, she planned to travel to Mexico, Hawaii and the Far East.
California Bound
However, a thief scuttled her travel plans a second time. Arriving in San Francisco, a pickpocket stole all their money, leaving Lange and her friend stranded and penniless. Lange then went to work as a photo finisher at a five-and-dime store. Within a year, she opened a portrait photography studio. Her skill brought many of the rich and famous of San Francisco to her door. Through her work at the studio, she met her first husband, wilderness painter Maynard Dixon. Together they had two sons before separating, reportedly due to his long absences and rumours of infidelity. They finally divorced in October 1935. In December that year, she married economist Paul Taylor.
Gift of Paul S. Taylor
A social Conscience
While Lange had a successful career as a portrait photographer in San Francisco, she saw her photographs as tools for social change rather than art. Lange, therefore, began photographing life outside the studio. She took to photographing the unemployed men wandering the streets of San Francisco. Her images, showing the men’s desperate condition, were publicly exhibited and received immediate recognition from the public and other photographers.
The Great Depression
The Great Depression had begun in 1929 and, by 1933, was at its height. Seven thousand banks (one-third) of the banking system had closed. Within the U.S., fourteen million people were out of work bringing hardship, homelessness and poverty to millions. People evicted from their homes were sleeping in parks, sewer pipes and numerous shanty towns. “Hooverville” became a common term for a shanty town, named after Herbert Hoover, President at the start of the depression and widely blamed for it.
Lange visited a nearby breadline she had heard about with her Graflex camera. The breadline had been set up by a woman known as the “White Angel” to feed the many hordes of unemployed. This visit resulted in another iconic image: ‘White Angel Bread Line, San Francisco’, The photograph of a man turned away from the hungry crowd; his interlaced hands and set jaw personified collective despair.
Documenting the Dust Bowl Migrants
Lange’s photographs brought her immediate recognition, especially her image “white angel breadline”. It led to her being offered a commission as a Field Investigator for the Federal Resettlement Administration. The U.S. Agriculture Department hoped that Lange’s powerful images would bring the conditions of the rural poor to the public’s attention. So, throughout the summer of 1936, Lange drove through the South, photographing tenant farms and sharecroppers.
Dust Bowl Migrants
AP reporter Robert Geiger coined the term “dust bowl” to describe the land after years of drought. Following ten years of drought and subsequent dust storms, many sharecroppers and tenant farmers abandoned their land. Some battled on. However, they too were forced out when the banks foreclosed. As a result, around one-quarter of the population of the Great Plains (Colorado, southwestern Kansas, the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, and northeastern New Mexico) were rendered homeless. They packed everything they owned into their cars and trucks and headed west toward California, which was touted at the time as Eden for hard workers. Leaving the drought-ravaged Midwest behind them, the migrants were viewed by Californians as disease-ridden intruders who would sponge off the government.
Unlike our current view of migrants being from other countries, these ‘migrants’ were fellow Americans moving from Great Plains to California. They were disdainfully called ‘Oakies’ and despised by Californians because their circumstances forced them to live in filth and squalor in shantytowns along irrigation ditches and roadsides.
The Migrant Mother
At the end of her trip through the south, as she returned home to the Bay, Lange was hot, tired and missing her sons. Driving down the road, she saw a sign reading, “PEA-PICKERS CAMP,” in Nipomo, California. Though she drove past the sign, it tugged her back, and she turned the car around and returned to the camp. There she encountered Florence Owens Thompson and her children. This led to the most famous image of the depression, if not her career.
“I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother as if drawn by a magnet,” she later recalled. “She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding field and birds that the children killed.”
Dorothea Lange
The image Lange took that day, ‘Migrant Mother’ became one of the most iconic and reproduced images in the history of photography. (Unfortunately, as Lange had been working for the U.S. Government then, she didn’t own the image and received no royalties from it).
Lange’s career continues to rise
Lange’s first exhibition was held in 1934, cementing her reputation as a skilled documentary photographer. In 1939 she published a collection of 112 photographs in the book An American Exodus: A Record of Human Erosion. It is considered a masterpiece of the documentary genre. Her second husband, economist Paul Taylor, provided the text. In 1939. John Steinbeck visited the migrant camps with Lange and used her images as research when writing his seminal novel the ‘Grapes of Wrath’. John Ford also used her images as research when he turned the book into a film.
In 1940, Dorothea received a Guggenheim fellowship that gave her enough money to live for one year and focus on her art. So, Lange invited her son Daniel and friend Ansel Adams to join her in photographing Mormon communities in America.
The War Years
However, as World War II escalated, Dorothea and Ansel put the project on hold. They wanted to do something they considered more important. So the War Relocation Authority hired the two colleagues. Their brief was to document the experience of Japanese Americans in internment camps following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour. Dorothea opposed internment policies but felt it was important to witness and document the truth of the camps.
When working for the War Department during WWII, she was forbidden from documenting the Japanese internment camps in any way that suggested they were anything other than organized and dignified. She found creative workarounds, such as photographing the shadow of a barbed-wire fence rather than the fence itself.
Literary Ladies Guild
Dorothea Lange/Library of Congress prints and photographs division, Washington D.C. 20540 USA
Japanese Internment Campos
The army instructed Lange to capture all steps in the process of the camps. But she was too good at her job. Her photographs showed Japanese parents and children in horrific and heartbreaking conditions. This was not the PR the U.S. Army wanted, and they refused to share Dorothea’s photographs with the public. Censored and forgotten, no one saw her Japanese internment photographs for decades.
Finally, in 2006, her work was celebrated when Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment, edited by historians Linda Gordon and Gary Y. Okihiro, was published.
Post War
Following the end of World War II, Lange returned to her projects creating several photo essays for Life magazine, including Mormon Villages and The Irish Countryman. In 1953–54 Lange worked with Edward Steichen on “The Family of Man,” an exhibition organised by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Included in the exhibition were several of her photographs. Over the next ten years, Lange travelled with her husband Paul, who was now a diplomat, photographically documenting countries throughout Asia, notably South Asia, the Middle East, and South America.
Final Exhibition
In 1965 Lange was diagnosed with inoperable esophageal cancer. At the time she was preparing for a retrospective exhibition of her work to be held at MoMA the following year. Her one-woman show was only the sixth ever dedicated to a photographer. And the first ever for a woman photographer. Dorothea Lange died, aged 70, on October 11, 1965. The exhibition opened to wide acclaim three months after her death
