New York City 1929 - 1930

Walker Evans made this photograph, New York City, on film, and it looks like he's just captured a moment, hasn't he? There's such an unposed quality to the figures, and yet, it's clearly composed in a very deliberate way. What I find really interesting is the way the light falls on the figures, and how the artist has used a full tonal range, from the very dark depths of the shop behind, to the highlights on the man's cigarette. The woman's expression, her finger raised to her lips, it's as though she's been caught mid-thought. It's an open-ended narrative, a study of faces and gestures, a little story held within the frame. Thinking about other photographers, I'm reminded of August Sander and his project to document the people of the Weimar Republic. Both artists were interested in the relationship between the individual and society, but where Sander was very formal, Evans seems to have embraced the accidental, the fleeting, the ordinary.