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November 1935. "Crowded housing in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Phillipsburg, New Jersey." 8x10 nitrate negative by Walker Evans for the U.S. Resettlement Administration. View full size.
Agree it is astonishing. The resolution and depth mostly to do with the 8x10 nitrate negative, probably low speed no/low grain stock, long exposure.
Plus of course the photographer's impressive skill.
The depth of field in this photograph is amazing!
Looks like vjmvjm is correct -- here's the same row of houses in Phillipsburg, NJ
While I was employed at the Collinwood yard in Cleveland, the residents whose property abutted the tracks sold cold quarts of beer and shots of liquor through the back windows of their garages to thirsty railworkers.
This source says it's Phillipsburg, NJ. Doesn't look like Bethlehem.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/267118
[The Library of Congress, where these negatives reside, says Bethlehem. - Dave]
Knowing Walker Evans as a scholar and influence on American photography, I thought of two photographs by Paul Strand (1890-1976). It's interesting that the first Strand fence was taken 19 years before Evans's, and the second 15 years after.
Clothes on the line ... it must be Monday.
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