I love: Halley M.

Let me tell you a little about Halley.

She is one of my favorite friends.

She is the strongest woman I know, by far, and lucky for me she lives right down the street.

She puts up with me when I miss the ex.
She puts up with me when I hate the ex.
She puts up with me when I love the ex.

She is tall and blond, with eyes the color of polished jade and a laugh that ripples through a room.

She grew up in Northern California.

She shares my love for frozen yogurt and LOST.

When I make her angry she says, "Robin, I'm angry." When I make her happy, she says, "Robin, I'm happy."

Her honesty and boldness inspires me on a daily basis.

Her, Jen and I have a standing Saturday date. We go dancing, I throw out some spastic moves, drink red bull - then we give our numbers to cute boys (or girls) at the end of the night... (truth be told, I have never done this, I can't muster enough nerve).

And lastly, I love the way she stands in the world.

*Who are your best friends? What are they like?

I love: Dorothea Lang.

Migratory Cotton Picker, Eloy, Arizona, 1940

Migrant Mother, Nipomo, Cal. 1936

She is known for her FSA photographs- FSA stands for the Farm Security Administration, one of FDR’s economy jump starters from the New Deal. Her images captured the human cost of the depression.

Some background: In 1918 she opened a portrait studio in San Francisco, but when the Great Depression hit, she abandoned her formal work for the street. By 1933 she quit her commercial work entirely, and focused on taking photos of the “forgotten man” -

Later, as the Depression gnawed through the country, she took photographs revealing rural poverty – the exploitation of migrant laborers and sharecroppers.

She had this pinned to her darkroom door:

The contemplation of things as they are, 

without substitution or imposture, 

without error or confusion, 

is in itself a nobler thing 

than a whole harvest of invention. 

- Sir Francis Bacon