Waiting for the Boats 1889

Lydell Sawyer made this photograph, “Waiting for the Boats,” probably in the 1890s. It’s a small gelatin silver print – a relatively new technology at the time. Look closely, and you see women and children gathered on a pier with their baskets. In the background, a steamship hints at the industrial backdrop of their lives. The tones of the print, from the pale sky to the dark clothing, evoke a sense of the everyday, but also the hard work of port life. Think about the labor that went into this image. The women’s work of fishing, the photographer’s own labor, the factory workers who made the gelatin emulsion, and the paper it was printed on. All of these things converge here, in this quiet but evocative image. Photography, like other industrial processes, offered new ways of seeing and representing the world, but also new ways of understanding labor, class, and the human condition.