Untitled 1908

This photograph was taken by Lewis Hine, and it's a small window into a particular moment, captured with light and shadow. What strikes me is how Hine uses the tonal range, that is, the gradations from light to dark, to create a sense of depth and texture. Look at the way the light catches the leaves on the ground, making some sharp and clear and others blurry and soft. The monochrome palette makes you look closer. There’s something about the boy's face, the way his eyes seem to hold a story that the rest of the image only hints at. It’s hard to know what’s going on, but there's an interesting tension between the boy's buttoned up formality, and the setting that looks rural and ad hoc. The details in the buildings at the back are blurry. I think this image is an interesting counterpoint to the work of someone like Diane Arbus, another photographer who often focused on portraits and telling stories in images.