I’ve long known I share my birthday with John Wayne. Can’t say I’m particularly a fan of his movies or some of his politics. I don’t think I’ve watched a single Wayne film.
Via the Flickr blog, I learned that Dorothea Lange was also born on May 26th. Now there’s someone I’m happy to share birthdays with, especially since some of her best work is preserved at Cal Berkeley’s Bancroft Library. I did my graduate work at Cal, and while not a raving Old Blue, I’m quite proud of my alma mater.
And it turns out that a number of Lange’s photos are out of copyright, so some digital versions are freely available from Flickr, including the unretouched original “Migrant Mother” shot to your left.