Transport van tabak 1925 - 1928

This photograph shows a group of men unloading a 'Transport van tabak', made by an anonymous photographer. It captures a moment, suspended, of workers unloading a haul of tobacco. The photograph is grey, almost without tonal variation. Look closely at the composition; the scene is broken up by the repeated rectilinear forms: the crates, the train carriages, the bales of tobacco, even the upright posture of the figures creates a sense of order. But the details complicate things. The bales are all different shapes, the surfaces of the train carriage are marked and worn. The stack of bales on the right appears unstable, the picture as a whole seems like it might topple at any moment. This sense of imbalance, of an impossible geometry, reminds me of some of the photographs of the Bechers, but where they catalogued industrial architecture, here we have something much more human, and fragile.