Company Houses for Tannery Workers 1935

Walker Evans made this photograph of company houses for tannery workers with a camera, lens and film at an undetermined date. The lack of frills in this image, the plainness, it’s all about recording what’s there, and that’s the art of it. Look at the way the houses line up, each one almost exactly like the other, a rhythm of doors and windows. Then, there's that road, slicing through the scene, pulling your eye from left to right, it’s cold, cutting the image in two. And those houses, they're not romantic, they’re just…there. Each with a porch, a little slice of private space, a human touch in a world that feels so…uniform. Evans is like, ‘here it is,’ and then he moves on. His work reminds me a bit of Bernd and Hilla Becher, you know, those German photographers who documented industrial structures with such a straight face. Like them, he invites us to look, really look, without telling us what to think. And maybe that's the point – to see the world as it is, without the sugar coating.