Man Coming Up Subway Stairs

Description

Roy DeCarava used a handheld 35mm camera to create an intensely lyrical and evocative chronicle of life in Harlem during the mid-1900s. Combing the sidewalks and public spaces of his home community, DeCarava made photographs that explored the relationship of the individual to the social environment during a fraught time in history. He often photographed in situations where there was little light, as in this scene of a man emerging from the subway, and carefully printed the murky images to elicit an unsentimental sensuousness.