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Found The Camera A Powerful: At this time in America, Lewis W. Hine was making a series of remarkable photographs of immigrants arriving in New York. Trained as a sociologist at the Universities of Chicago, Columbia, and New York, he found the Camera a powerful tool for research and for communicating his findings to others. He was greatly concerned with the welfare of the underprivileged.
The portable hand Camera thus brought about a chanj in working methods. The photographers' output wi increased, and oftentimes the recorded Camera image wi merely a starting point for the final composition. Tr. hand Camera also increased the scope of photography, f< with it many subjects generally considered beyond tt limits of photography were now brought within gras]
At the turn of the century, technical innovatioi broadened the camera's field of operation still furthe Lenses were designed that produced images far moi brilliant than before; and small, compact precision can eras fitted with high-speed shutters were made, on whic the powerful lenses could be used. The small negativi were intended for enlarging.
In the years before World War I Hine took his Camera to Ellis Island to record the immigrants who were then arriving by the tens of thousands. He followed them into the unsavory tenements that became their homes, penetrated into the miserable sweatshops where they found work, and photographed their children playing among the ash-cans and the human derelicts in the sprawling slums of New York City. Hine realized, as Riis had before him, that his photographs were subjective and, for that very reason, were powerful and readily grasped criticisms of the impact of an economic system on the lives of underprivileged and exploited classes. He described his work as "photo-interpretations." The photographs were published as "human documents." |
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