Photo Analysis (Essay Sample)

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Photo Analysis
Jersey Street Tenements
This photo is a depiction of a woman carrying a child and several men seated at another corner, seemingly very idle and disillusioned. On the same point with the people, there are several shacks shown, probably the place they recognize as their dwellings. The picture tends to deviate from laying focus on the people, as expected of any typical picture; rather, it tries to bring out the objects in such a manner that they stand out ("History matters”). The distance set tries to de-emphasize the subjects in order for the audience to see the dilapidated, squalid surroundings. The period of the photo, as posited by Czitrom (Chan par 13), was the era when people were trying to start the social work movements in the US. Agreeably, the people in the photo are not really whites.
With respect to the video documentary, the photo seems to substantiate the feelings that were against immigration during this period (PBS NY: video). This is especially because such lives were mainly characteristic of the immigrants, who would move into the US and, finding no work or employment to get them moving, resort to very unhealthy living environments. This particular photo is a paragon of the works of Riis, whereby he used very little lighting and often took the photographs quite far from the subjects.
Generally, Riis was concerned about the kind of lives that the urban people lived, in terms of either morality, or the general living standards and the environment in which they lived. Either way, he was in some way against the urban immigration that was characteristic of the time. This as he outlines in How The Other Half Lives, ". . . prompted legislative reforms, focused attention on the desperate lives of poor urban immigrants and left an enduring mark on the history of documentary photography." As Czitrom points out, Riis believed ...