The photo “A Boy in Front of the Loews 125th Street Movie Theater, 1976-Harlem Stories” photographed by Dawoud Bell. In the Harlem Stories Bells shows the beauty of Harlem and the beauty of the people that live there. In this photo you see a boy looking cool in front of a movie theater holding a carton of juice. The boy appears to be very relaxed and seems like he was just hanging out in front of the movie theater. The photo gives off that the little boy is surrounded by a relaxed and cool enviornment, he’s seems to be very comfortable in the photo. The way the boy is dress says a lot about this photo too, how he’s in presentable clothes but appears to be in front of an vacant movie theater building.
Dawoud Bell uses visual elements such as curved line (the way the little boy is curved around the post), full scale (there’s many tones of gray, white, and black), shallow depth of focus (the boy is clearly visiable the backgroung is a little blurred but still visable), the viewpoint of the photo is an overhead shot you can tell by the way the boy is looking slightly down at the camera. Each visual element give the photo movement and a certain charm. Everything in this photo seems intentional, from the the way the boy is standing to the carton of juice he is holding, and the cool shades he has on. This photo gives you a look of the average child in Harlem. Aside from this photo the entire Harlem Stories series you see people dressed in nice attire but surrouned by a lot of dirt and roughness. For example, in this photo the young man is dressed very cool and nice clothes, but he seems o be hanging around an old grimy movie theater.
You describe this photo well and I think you understand Bey’s agenda to make the people of Harlem look dignified and strong despite the poverty surrounding them.
My only quibble would be that this is an eye level shot. We are on the same level as the subject. If it was an overhead shot we would see the top of his head.