formal critiques
There are about fifty spindles. Some of them are full of cotton and some are halfway full of cotton, but all of them have some cotton on them. There is a boy standing in the middle of the picture, he's facing the camera but his body isn't. There's rim light on the side of his face, the rest is just shadow. He's in a factory where only the windows let light in. His clothes contains of suspenders, a plaid shirt, and some trousers. This boy was ten, too small and young to be working in the mills. His parents had eight children therefore they had to have some of their children work in order to get food on their table. His name is John Dempsey, and he had barely turned ten. His face is expressionless because Lewis would lie to the factory owner and tell them he was a machinery inspector then snap a picture of the machine with a child because the children would show him the "scale" or measurements of the machine. He had a rough, laborious life but it was all worth it because he married and had three wonderful children, in the end he died at age seventy or seventy-one. Texture helped me see how old this boy looked but in reality he was very young, all this work had made him seem older than he really was. The color of the spindles were white and bright, meanwhile the tones on John were dark and this helped create a sort of unity. His proportion to the rest of the things behind him really helped emphasize the meaning of this picture which was "no more child labor".
There are four girls, all of them seem to be about the same age. They have longsleeve shirts tucked away in their skirts. Their sleeves are wrinkled. Their hair is done in an updo, or a bun. They all seem to be squinting except for the one in the middle, she looks like she's glaring at the camera. Their faces are dirty, their clothes has all this cotton or feathers on them, they're practically miserable. Miserable because they can't go out and play. Miserable because they have to work instead of play or go to school and learn about the world. Miserable because this has to change , and they have to be given a chance to become something greater than they can ever imagine to become. Why do they have to work? Their thoughts were that America had roads of silver and gold, not abuse and neglect of children. The emphasis on the girl in the middle provides a real emotion of how they feel to be working in the mills. There's variety in the girls Lewis used because one may be taller than another, or one may have bigger hair than the rest. The point here is that they are all friends because they share common things like a dream. There's repetition in their clothes if you look at the girl in the right edge she has light colored clothes, then the one next to her has a dark colored shirt, and again light colored shirt, dark colored shirt, and lastly a light colored shirt.
I see Little Julia, and another smaller girl. Their shoes are shiny so I'm assuming that they're leather or some kind of material like that. They're sitting outside on some old steps. There is wind because I can see Julia's hair moving, also because they are wearing coats and other clothes to cover them up from the cold. There's a lot of wood around them, there also seems to be an entry or door right above them. The wood looks old and it isn't painted. It also wasn't nailed down correctly, there are gaps where there shouldn't be any gaps. The wood planks on the right are just scraps because they're all different sizes, this gives off a sense of poverty and the adults probably just used any wood planks they could find in order to build their home even though it wasn't the best way to build a house you were going to put your whole family in. Their clothes is also a hint that they don't have much money to live off of and the adults have left their eldest child, which is LittleJulia in this case, to take care of the other small children because they can't, they have to go work. Her eyes, Little Julia's, show appreciativeness. She is thankful for all the little things she has, she has a sister, a family who works to feed her, and a home. I see line on the stairs, it's a horizontal line. There's emphasis on Julia's face and the way her eyes are squinted but you can still see her iris.
I see plants, they're tobacco plants. Under them are some children, they're boys. Two of them look younger than ten years old and one of them looks fifteen-ish. They're all wearing the same hat, cap thing. Two of the bays are wearing long sleeves meanwhile the eldest one is wearing a tank top. The eldest one has darker skin, kind of like a tan, than the other two boys. I believe that the fifteen year old has been working there longer. He has tan dark skin, and he's wearing a tank top which means hes probably more experienced. It also seems like he has muscles which led me to infer that hes older because of the way his arms look. The other two boys have more of pale skin,and they're wearing long sleeves, so that must mean that they're new to this, maybe it's their first day working there. Why are they working at such a young age? How could anybody let them work at this age? Where are their parents? Why aren't they watching over them? I see repetition in the stalks of tobacco, they are all placed in a neat order or line so the kids don't lose their track of which ones they have and haven't done. The color of the boy in the rear front causes an emphasis on the eye because he seems darker in lighting as to the rest of the picture/photograph. I like the space in between Lewis and the boys that are working it helps you see what they're sitting or working on, the dirt doesn't look like its loose and that means that the children probably struggle a lot with the plant.
I see nine children. The oldest I believe is fourteen, then twelve, then eleven, then ten, then nine, then nine, then five, then three, then one. The mother looks about thirty-ish, maybe early thirties. They are all standing in front of a house, it seems dirty, the walls. Only five of the kids are brunettes then there's a weird transition that the last four kids have blonde/light hair. The mom has brown hair also, behind her there's a stand with two big buckets and one small silver, shiny one. Why are all of them barefoot except for the oldest girl? Who is the father of all of these kids? Is the older lady the mother of all of these kids? Or is the oldest girl the mother of the younger four blonde kids? I believe that the oldest girl is the daughter of the thirty year old and so are the rest of the brown headed kids. But the blonde children are the kids of the oldest daughter, maybe she got married in order for her family to survive. Or maybe the mom got married twice? I also think that her first husband who gave her the first five brunette children died, and she remarried in order to help sustain her family. Once she remarried her new husband had or gave her the last four children. Or maybe she runs a daycare, where she takes care of all of these kids and only the oldest is her daughter. I see line, line on the childrens heads, line in the background on the house walls, on the window frames, and fence all the way back there. There's a light on the last baby kids face, it seems lighter than the other things around him/her which also causes an emphasis.