8:30 P.M. Group of newsboys selling at the depot, Hartford, Connecticut. Smallest boy 11 years old. 1909

Lewis Hine made this photograph, "8:30 P.M. Group of newsboys selling at the depot, Hartford, Connecticut. Smallest boy 11 years old," with a camera, at an unrecorded date. The scene has such muted tones, almost as if everything is drowning in a sepia wash. You can almost feel the dampness of the ground and the cold seeping into your bones. The way Hine captures the texture of the boys' clothing, the rough stone of the building, it’s all so tactile, so real. Look at the boy on the right, how he clutches those newspapers to his chest, his eyes dark with a weariness that seems way beyond his years. The newspapers are so bulky against his small frame, yet he holds them tightly, as though they are precious. Those papers were his means to survival, to food. This photograph reminds me of Jacob Riis and his work documenting poverty in New York City. Both artists show us the hidden corners of society, the places we often choose not to see.