Lewis Hine archive article from BBC.

[Stanley Edwards]

Rare photographs that changed lives

Just in case anyone missed it. Fabulous. Obviously most are posed, but that doesn't really detract from the value. Look at the dates, then consider where photography was back then.

Is there anything else of this age that actually compares?

 

[weltweit]

Nice set, I have seen some of them before and the one in the cotton mill reminds me of a UK photographer's images.

 

[RoyReed]

Is there anything else of this age that actually compares?

Hine was brilliant, but so were his contemporaries Steiglitz, Steichen and Strand in the US and Atget and Lartigue in France.

 

[mhendo]

There are about 5,000 of Hine's images in the National Child Labor Committee Collection at the Library of Congress. Almost all are available for download as high-resolution TIFF files.

 

[mhendo]

Hine was brilliant, but so were his contemporaries Steiglitz, Steichen and Strand in the US and Atget and Lartigue in France.

For the US, I would also add Jacob Riis (scroll down for pictures), who produced some amazing images of working-class Americans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

 

[Stanley Edwards]

Hine was brilliant, but so were his contemporaries Steiglitz, Steichen and Strand in the US and Atget and Lartigue in France.

I agree about their influence and historical/documentary value. However, what strikes me most about Hine's work is just how contemporary the composition looks. This one in particular (from the BBC link) demonstrates just how much composition through the viewfinder of a camera influenced other artists. Personally, I think Hine's eye was truly 'new' and unique in his day.

The effect of lens and focal plane also would have been something very new. Considered use of DoF, the light, strong lines coming to an abrupt stop. I don't think I have seen such brilliant stuff from any of his contemporaries as brilliant as they were themselves.

--/ 1908!