Houses and Steel Mill 1935

This photograph was taken by Walker Evans, and it's called Houses and Steel Mill. It's hard to pin down a date for it. What grabs me is the contrast. Those houses, so close, almost cuddling the steel mill—it's like the poor little houses are trying to get warm. Walker Evans has captured a world of contrasts here, a world where the domestic and the industrial rub against each other. I wonder what it was like for Evans to stand there and see this view. Did he feel a sense of dread? Or maybe a kind of stark beauty? There is something about the light, how it flattens everything out, that makes the scene feel both real and surreal at the same time. It reminds me of some of the urban landscapes that painters like Charles Sheeler were doing around the same time, but with a rawer, more documentary edge. Evans’s photo is a reminder of the power of seeing. He shows us how the world is, unvarnished, and in doing so, invites us to see it with fresh eyes. He is in conversation with the painters, and we're lucky to be able to listen in.