Ditched, Stalled and Stranded, San Joaquin Valley, California (1936)

 

Ditched, Stalled and Stranded, is an image taken by Dorothea Lange that is also widely recognised throughout society. This photograph is one of Lange’s famous portraits, which centres around the facial expression of her subject. The artwork is exhibited in many places and is part of The Dorothea Lange Collection, exhibited at The Oakland Museum of California. 

 

Lange photographed this shot during her time at the Farm Security Administration in the Depression-era. When Lange had taken this photograph, there was a woman and a man driving through San Joaquin Valley in California, whose car had broken down. During the 1930s, there had been an influx in population in the California region for agricultural purposes. This photograph was taken three years after the San Joaquin Valley, California agricultural strikes of 1933, as this region’s wages had declined significantly from $1.50 per hundred pounds in 1928 to just 40 cents per hundred pounds in 1932 due to the Great Depression. 

 

This photo was taken in San Joaquin Valley in California in 1936, during the Depression-era. Ditched, Stalled and Stranded depicts a man who is stranded in his car. The subject’s face expression represents the man’s plight, suggesting the larger complications that arise in society when faced with the repercussions of the Great Depression. Lange has used modernist techniques to produce a startling and jarring image of her subject. In Ditched, Stalled and Stranded, Lange has dramatic angles and dynamic compositions to subtly direct the viewer to a fresh appreciation of the subject’s plight. The vector from the steering wheel is evident to advert the audience’s attention to the subject, and the subject’s facial expression. The threadbare attire of a dark coat and the ragged hat illustrates the authenticity of the rural poverty. To add to the claustrophobia of effects of the Depression, Lange purposely cropped the photograph into a tighter composition, which originally included a woman sitting in the passenger's seat. Following Lange’s style of photography, in Ditched, Stalled and Stranded, Lange had intentionally captured the man’s candidness, rather than coercing the subject to pose to intensify the reality of the image.

 

Lange passion was to capture the reality of the social issue of rural poverty of the Great Depression and Ditched, Stalled and Stranded is another photograph that Lange has taken which unveils the verisimilitude of the era.