Dorothea Lange was a well known American documentary photographer who worked between 1895-1965. She did a lot of work in the Great Depression photographing farm workers.

Technically Langes photographs are simple, well exposed and are composed well. They are not exploitative and shows empathy to her subjects.

I her aim is to produce a document, a story following the Great Depression, and not to provide a ground breaking story but to show what was really  happening by following the farm workers and also shooting intimate close portraits.

James Nachtwey is a modern documentary photographer who goes to current war zones and poverty stricken countries to document the situations. Nachways work contrasts Langes as his work seems to have a more direct point to it, he works clearly to document the poverty, trauma and emotions of a situation.

He photographs using film to produce rich and dramatic colours and also contrasty tonal black and whites. Nachways black and white images contrast Langes as they have a lot more contrast portrating more drama in the scene.

Both photographers use natural available light and used dark rooms to develop the images. Nachways exhibition displayed large prints produced in the dark room, techniques such as dodging and burning were used dramatically in some of these images to produce the exact look Nachway wanted.

Langes response to the change in social circumstances was to follow the situation and document it. Similarly Nachway goes to the situation, he flys out to war zones and gets himself in the thick of the action. Modern times enables Nachway to do this, something which would not have been so easy for the historical photographers such as Lange.

Both Lange and Nachwey photograph reality, the do not construct images dramatically. They work with what is infront of them.