New York City 1929 - 1930

Walker Evans made this photograph in New York City, we don't know exactly when. The figures captured in the image are caught mid-motion, seemingly unaware of Evans’s lens, and maybe that's why it looks so real. There’s a raw, unpolished quality to the scene that feels very true to life. Look at the woman's expression. She almost looks alarmed. I imagine Evans, hiding with his camera, trying not to be seen. Or maybe she's just worried! What was life like for her, I wonder? There’s a certain honesty in Evans’s work, a willingness to show life as it is, without any romanticism. In that sense, he reminds me of photographers like Diane Arbus. They show us what it's like to be human, in all its messy, complicated glory.