Adams, Lange, and Miyatake: 3 Photographers and 3 Views on Japanese Internment

NPR’s All Things Considered aired this interesting 5-minute segment that discusses Japanese internment camp photos of photographers Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, and Toyo Miyatake.

While Adams and Lange were already famed photographers in that day, Toyo Miyatake was a Japanese-American photographer who had sneaked a camera into his internment camp to document life in it. The 3 photographers had 3 very different perspectives on the camps.

Adams was given a chance to take photos of a camp by its director in 1943. His photos, which we featured back in November 2015, show beautifully framed scenes and depict those interned as peaceful citizens.

Lange was actually commissioned by the U.S. War Relocation Authority to document the relocation of 110,000 Japanese-Americans during World War II, but her photos were seized by the government after she depicted the camps as an injustice.

Finally, Miyatake’s photos as an inmate himself show a much more intimate view of life inside the camp — something that Adams and Lange were unable to capture as outsiders looking in.

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P.S. Photos from this trio of photographers are on display in an exhibition titled “Manzanar: The Wartime Photographs of Ansel Adams” at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, through February 21st, 2016.