Men at Work, Pittsburgh

Charles K. Archer’s soft-focus photograph depicts workers assembling steel beams high above the streets of Pittsburgh while engulfed in an atmospheric haze. This impressionistic style emphasizes mood over optical precision and is typical of Pictorialist photography. At the turn of the 1900s, the international Pictorialist movement championed photography as equal to the other fine arts. Its practicioners often used complex printing processes, like the bromoil technique used here by Archer, which allowed for greater manipulation of tone and texture.