Photographic Expression

In the early 1980's I went to a major retrospective of Lewis Hine's work at the Brooklyn Museum in NY. There were more than 240 photographs that spanned his work in documenting the immigrants at Ellis Island, the work for the National Child Labor Committee and the workmen on the Empire State Building.

I learned much more from this exhibit about photography than I ever imagined I would. Lewis Hine allowed each person in every image to shine. While many portrait artists impose their will on an image, with dynamic or obvious composition or images of people in disturbing or humorous situations, Hine would have none of this. His images exalted the people he photographed. His real talent, and the key to his artistic expression was his selflessness. The way he approached life was to be open to it. The way he approached humans was to respect and appreciate them. It turns out that that approach is the true expression in photography. How a photographer interacts with his world is what he or she gets to share with the rest of us. It is all about relationship - and the depth of these relationships, the intimacy, or the integrity - of our relationship with what we are photographing. These relationships will show, whether we are interacting with a person or elements in a landscape.

In Peru I saw a tourist lean out the back of a bus and photograph an old Inca man. Now, contrast this with Walker Evans in the South living with a family for three weeks before taking out his camera to make some of the most enduring portraits ever made. It's the difference perhaps between "taking" a photograph and "giving" one, between stealing and honoring.

I could never be accused of suggesting that "street shooting" or the simple taking of snapshots, is not an art form. Every form of expression has levels that go all the way from banal to sublime. However, in the range that Lewis Hine worked is an expression of deeper meaning than what is revealed through simple observation. That's the kind of art that has the ability to teach us something and it's the kind of art I want to look at.