A viewing of Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning with director Dyanna Taylor

Dyanna Taylor is a five-time Emmy award winning Cinematographer and Director of Photography whose prominent career in documentaries and features has also earned her a Peabody Award and the honored Muse Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Vision and Achievement in Cinematography from New York Women in Film and Television.

She has traveled the world lensing and directing films, documentaries, and television specials on social issues and environmental/wildlife concerns. Her extensive credits include work for all of the major network and cable media organizations including HBO, PBS, ABC, NBC, CBS and Nat Geo. Recently, she was 2nd Unit Director of Photography for the Disney feature McFarland, scheduled for release in fall of 2014, and is currently shooting Sleep for National Geographic. Taylor is also well known for her work as Director and Co-Producer of Annapurna: A Woman’s Place, which tells the gripping story of the first American women’s ascent of Annapurna I, and the tragic deaths of two of the climbers during the filming. She has a strong commitment to innovative, independently produced films and a deep interest in the world of art and the artistic mind. In progress: a film, shot over a period of 20 years, focused on artist James Turrell’s work at the Roden Crater.

A Buddhist, lover of animals and the natural world, Taylor also co-leads retreats for Media Makers.

Her film: Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning, has special meaning for Taylor. She is Lange’s granddaughter, and has been deeply influenced by her grandmother’s sensibility and esthetic. This relationship has given Taylor access to never-before-seen footage, photographs, and journals. Combining Taylor’s memories and personal understanding with thorough scholarship, her film gives the viewer both an understanding and felt sense of the woman whose influential 20th century work revealed America to America.