Houses and Steel Mill 1935

Walker Evans made this photograph, Houses and Steel Mill, using gelatin silver print; a pretty classic process for the time. What strikes me is the soft range of grays he coaxes out of the material. There’s something melancholic, almost tender, about the way he captures this street. Look at how the houses huddle together, dwarfed by the looming steel mill in the background. The texture of the photograph is smooth, almost velvety, which contrasts sharply with the gritty reality of the scene. The eye is drawn to the delicate tracery of the bare trees against the sky, a fragile counterpoint to the solid, imposing structures of industry. It reminds me a little of some of the German photographers like August Sander. But there’s also a kind of poetry in the way Evans frames this view. He finds beauty in the everyday, the overlooked. Art doesn’t always have to shout; sometimes, it whispers.