Portret van een onbekende immigrante op Ellis Island, afkomstig uit Pisticci, Italië 1905

Lewis Hine made this photograph of an unknown immigrant from Pisticci, Italy, at Ellis Island. Hine was a sociologist as well as a photographer, and his approach to the medium was to capture authentic and unvarnished portraits of everyday people. This is not about a decisive moment, but an exercise in care and documentation. There’s a quietness to this image, a subtle way of registering this person's presence. You can see the textures in the fabric of her headscarf and the lace trim of her blouse, which give you a sense of the person's lived experience. The light seems to fall gently across her face, highlighting the planes of her cheeks and forehead. Her gaze is direct but not confrontational. This kind of understated quality can be seen in the photographs of Judith Joy Ross, who worked in a similarly unadorned and intimate way. Ultimately, this photograph is an invitation to consider the complexities of identity, history, and representation.