Margaret Bourke-White was born in Bronx, NY in 1904, the daughter of a naturalist and a homemaker. In 1926 she attended Cornell University and emerged from there as a strong woman destined to pioneer and reinvent what it meant to be a professional photographer. Bourke-White specialized in documenting the rise of industry in both the US and was the first photographer to document industry in Soviet Russia after the revolution. In addition many her photographs sent a very political and sometimes satirical message to the public. She went on to have an incredibly successful career at LIFE(run by the same publishing company as TIME magazine) magazine, including having her photo of the enormous chain of dams in the Colombia River be the first ever photograph to be on LIFE's cover. Margaret Bourke-White died of Parkinson's Disease in 1971.
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| Margaret Bourke-White, Steel Liners, 1936, Gelatin Silver print |
What I find very appealing about this image and all of Bourke-White's industry photography, is the organic looking beauty found in completely unnatural man-made things. Personally, I am drawn to images that show natural beauty and the industrial revolution is one of the most unnatural things that our country has gone through. In this image, Bourke-White manages to capture my favored aesthetic of natural beauty in something deeply unnatural. On the more technical side of things, I love the composition of the image, the use of lines and shape as well as the very pleasing range of colors.
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