From Candids to Portraits

Jacob Riis used a different technique for each of these three photographs he took to show the plight of individuals in neighborhoods like the Lower East Side in the late 19th century. As you examine the images and read about his process, consider how his portrayals evolved and debate the ethics of Riis’s approach to depicting working-class New Yorkers.

"Five Cents a spot"

Jacob Riis began using photography as a tool to document conditions he hoped to expose on New York’s Lower East Side. However, he considered himself a writer and not a photographer. A recurrent subject in his work was the overcrowded and poor housing conditions in the Lower East Side. According to his book How the Other Half Lives (1890), there were barely any apartment vacancies in the neighborhood. The housing shortage, coupled with widespread low wages, drove many immigrants into severely crowded overnight lodging. Riis described the lodgings as a source of disease and despair, but also criticized census and health department officials as being ineffective in combating the problem.

Riis accompanied a police officer in his late-night investigation of one such tenement and, aided by newly invented flash powder, took this photograph. In many of his early photographs Riis used the flash powder and the element of surprise to capture candid images of his subjects. A candid shot means that people in the image were not aware that someone was about to take their picture.

Document Based Questions:

1. What are the people doing in this photograph?

2. What else do you see in their surroundings?

3. How might it have felt to be one of the people in this candid imaget?

4. Describe the lighting in the photograph. Where is the light coming from in this photograph?

5. This is a candid shot, which means that people in the image were not aware that someone was about to take their picture. Does this affect your interpretation of the photograph?

6, Why do you think Jacob Riis would have wanted to take this photograph?

7. Do you think Jacob Riis had the right to take these photographs?