Image Analysis Paper
Figure 1: Parks, Gordon. "Washington D.C. Government Charwoman Cleaning after Regular Working Hours." Library of Congress Call No. LC-USF34- 013411-C [P&P]
Introduction
The photograph as shown above is shot by Gordon Parks in 1942, and is called ‘Washington D.C. Government Charwoman Cleaning after Regular Working Hours’ (Parks). The photograph is part of the collection ‘Ella Watson, U.S. Government Charwoman’ (Farm Security Administration).
Description
The photograph shows a woman mopping a floor in an office. The woman is black. She is wearing rimless spectacles, whose glasses are round. She is holding a mop with a long wooden handle in her hands, and is looking down on the floor as she is mopping. She is wearing a white apron over her dress. The apron is clean, and has no smudges or dirt on it. At shoulder level, there is a slight tear on the apron. The woman’s arms are bare. The sinews in her forearm are visible. She is wearing a black skullcap. She is wearing trousers that have a parallel cut. She is wearing medium heavy unisex boots of ankle height.
The mop has a handle that is around five feet long. In comparison, the woman is likely to be around five feet eight inches tall. The mop has bushy fibers for mopping. The fibers are uniform and in good condition. The woman is mopping a wooden floor. The floor is not distinctly visible, due to lack of available light. There does not appear to be too much dirt on the floor.
The woman is in an enclosure that appears to be an office. She is mopping in the middle of the room, and there are four desks along the walls. The desks have piles of paper stacked on them, organized in folders. A table in the corner, behind the woman, has the two folders stacked on top of each other. The table to the right of the woman has two folders again, but the folders are much thicker than those on the table behind the woman. The table in front of the woman has one folder. The table closest to the viewer, to the left behind the woman, has a wire tray with paper. The chair at this table is visible. The chair has a dark cloth, likely to be a coat, draped over it. The walls of the office are covered with fabric rollup blinds. The blinds are rolled down. Beyond the blinds, on the far end to the right of the woman, are two windows. The windows are open, and there is a light burning outside, probable from a building across. The blinds on the wall behind the woman conceal a frame, likely to be a partition separating the office from a bigger establishment. It is dark in the office while the woman is mopping. The only illumination is from a light source from the floor level from in front of the woman.
Interpretation
The most striking thing about the photograph is the demeanor of the woman. She is doing a lowly job- mopping. However, given the excellent condition of the mop, and the good condition of the apron, one can deduce that the woman takes pride in the work she is doing. She maintains her dignity, despite her lowly station in life.
The woman’s low station in life is likely to be due to the fact that she is black. Her spectacles, rimless and light, seem to indicate that she can read. If the color of her skin was different, she may well have been the owner of the office she finds herself mopping. This irony, however, does not cause heartburn to the woman. She remains calm and dignified in her position in life.
The woman exudes confidence and trust in her employers. This can be seen from the fact that the papers in the office are not under lock and key. The office workers trust the cleaning lady to keep their work out in the open. The fact that none of the papers are askew indicates that the woman has not let down the trust reposed on her by so much as even rifling through the papers to see what they contained.
Life, however, is not fair to the woman. She is working late into the night. Her working hours are not normal. Most people work in the daytime. The fact that she is working at such odd hours indicates a system that exploits the disadvantaged in society. The woman, despite the fact that she is literate and likely to be capable of holding a better job, suffers from discrimination. There is not much she can do about it, as the system is vastly overbearing.
Therefore, while the woman cannot change the environment around her and the system that forces her to hold on to a lowly job, what she does with aplomb is control what goes on within herself. She remains calm and stoic, and does not blame the world for where she finds herself. She takes life on the basis of how the chips have fallen for her. She makes the best of what she is given, by being professional and loyal to her job and earning the trust of her employers. Even on the physical front, the woman ensures that she eats well. She remains physically strong and is fit. She has not let her body go to seed. This shows her determination to weather the bad times.
Behind the surface, however, the woman harbors dreams of a better future. This can be seen by the serenity on her face. The woman is sure that the tide of fate would turn, and that she would find her talents better recognized by society. Perhaps the woman has the outlines of a book in her mind; one that would lay bare to the world the travails of black workers in America in the forties. Once the woman writes the book, it is sure to be a bestseller, as the woman would write with the same qualities that she displays in her job as cleaning woman- professionalism, empathy, loyalty and poise.
Relation to Other Photographs in the Collection
The photograph is one in a series of photographs of the woman’s life as a cleaning lady. While the initial photographs describe the woman’s house, the middle set of photographs is taken with the woman in the office. The final set shows the activities of the woman in her society, specially focusing on her interaction with the church.
Thus, while the entire collection shows a holistic view of the life of the cleaning woman, it is the set of photographs of the woman in her workplace that form the heart of the collection. Within this set of photographs, the photograph selected for description provides the broadest leeway for interpretation, and has the maximum elements that provide clues to the woman’s approach to life and the inimical societal pressures on blacks. The lighting, the time of the day, the look on the woman’s face and her demeanor combine to make an arresting photograph, easily the piece de resistance of the entire collection. Therefore, this was the photograph chosen for description.
Work Cited
Farm Security Administration. “Ella Watson, U.S. Government Charwoman.” LoC.gov. n.d. Web. May 2, 2016.
Watson, Gordon. “Washington, D.C. Government Charwoman Cleaning After Regular Working Hours.” 1942. Photograph. LoC.gov. Web. May 2, 2016.
