Indianapolis Newsboy, 41 Inches High, 1908 1908

In 1908, Lewis Hine captured this boy with his camera, a tool that could be mightier than a brush, or so they say. I wonder about Lewis, lurking on the street corner, spotting this kid, and quickly framing the shot with his lens, just as a painter might frame a canvas with masking tape, setting parameters. The barber's pole is like a bizarre tree trunk. The kid leans against it, and is he also part of the architecture? Hine was driven by a fierce sense of social justice, hoping to expose and change the world with his pictures. He must have asked himself what sort of light and angle would best reveal the world as he saw it. Through such careful attention, the mundane, the everyday, and the easily overlooked become extraordinary and unforgettable. Like artists through the ages, Hine took the raw material of reality and alchemized it into something that still speaks to us today, a reminder that all creation involves both seeing and feeling.