Lewis Hine’s unsuccessful images, his failures, demonstrate the terrifying potential of this power. He took pictures of two “dinner-toters” in front of the Riverside Cotton Mills in Danville, Virginia, in June 1911. In the mills, the girls carry their baskets and feed their brothers or dads lunch. Hine shot the girls with the understanding that they were engaging in child labor by carrying meals. He also typically captures the image correctly. The photographer is directly facing the two girls, who are positioned front and center in the funnel of space.
This is a street scene rather than a scene between the sides of a mill, but the force is still there, dazzling the viewer with the iron grid of the fence sealing off one side and the street flaring in a muddy blur on the other. The woman crossing the street, the man in the white shirt carrying a basket along the sidewalk, and the man’s arm bringing a basket a little bit closer to us are all background figures that are striking their notes in the meanwhile. The man, whose black face is visible, has been assigned to deliver lunches, much like the little girls.
The shot captures the uneven glow of the day. One of the diners has a large straw hat, while the other is holding the massive umbrella, holding it high on the fishhook handle due to her slender arm’s inability to maintain it otherwise. The two young girls tilt left and right, the telephone pole leans in one direction, and the umbrella leans in the other. This creates a contrapuntal array that is held in suspension, a fragility of forces whose leitmotif is the little girl’s left foot, which is slightly elevated off the ground. The gap between that foot and its shadow measures the overall balance of weights in the picture, which includes the girls, the laden baskets, the iron fence latticed into a heavy thinness, the umbrella canopy on its stalk, the feeling of air trapped in its dome, the sky between the girls’ heads, and the sidewalk between their shins and beneath the hanging baskets. These elements combine to create levity and weight, the skewed equilibrium of a moment. However, the faces of the young females are hidden.
Their features fade into a murky, grainy haze, and the taller girl’s teeth turn a brilliant gray. While the distant lunch basket is as smeared as their faces, the nearer lunch basket’s woven harlequin pattern is crisp and distinct, much like the tips of the taller girl’s shoes and the delicate accents on her companion’s huge toenails. Maybe Hine found it too difficult to reconcile the local shade of the umbrella with the brightness. Regardless of the cause for the picture’s failure, it conveys the idea of Hine’s ability to hold—or not hold—a person in time. It will be determined right then and there if they exist forever or not. Suppose that on that June 1911 day in Danville, Virginia, you were a young child carrying lunch to your father. You were one of these anonymous dinner-toters that afternoon.
The odds of their being a record of you on that day, or practically any other day, are astronomically low. In the whole country, there is only one individual who visits the mills to take pictures of kids like you. He follows no set schedule and is so unknown that, except from a small group of socialist reformers, neither you nor anybody else is aware of him. Observations include the woman crossing the street, the man in the white shirt lugging a basket along the sidewalk, and the man’s arm a bit closer to us carrying a basket. The man, whose black face is visible, has been assigned to deliver lunches, much like the little girls.
The shot captures the uneven glow of the day. One of the diners has a large straw hat, while the other is holding the massive umbrella, holding it high on the fishhook handle due to her slender arm’s inability to maintain it otherwise. The two young girls tilt left and right, the telephone pole leans in one direction, and the umbrella leans in the other. This creates a contrapuntal array that is held in suspension, a fragility of forces whose leitmotif is the little girl’s left foot, which is slightly elevated off the ground. The gap between that foot and its shadow measures the overall balance of weights in the picture, which includes the girls, the laden baskets, the iron fence latticed into a heavy thinness, the umbrella canopy on its stalk, the feeling of air trapped in its dome, the sky between the girls’ heads, and the sidewalk between their shins and beneath the hanging baskets. These elements combine to create levity and weight, the skewed equilibrium of a moment. However, the faces of the young females are hidden.
Their features fade into a murky, grainy haze, and the taller girl’s teeth turn a brilliant gray. While the distant lunch basket is as smeared as their faces, the nearer lunch basket’s woven harlequin pattern is crisp and distinct, much like the tips of the taller girl’s shoes and the delicate accents on her companion’s huge toenails. Maybe Hine found it too difficult to reconcile the local shade of the umbrella with the brightness. Regardless of the cause for the picture’s failure, it conveys the idea of Hine’s ability to hold—or not hold—a person in time.
It will be determined right then and there if they exist forever or not. Suppose that on that June 1911 day in Danville, Virginia, you were a young child carrying lunch to your father. You were one of these anonymous dinner-toters that afternoon. The odds of their being a record of you on that day, or practically any other day, are astronomically low. In the whole country, there is only one individual who visits the mills to take pictures of kids like you. He follows no set schedule and is so unknown that, except from a small group of socialist reformers, neither you nor anybody else is aware of him.