Adolphe Smith

Street Life in London, was first published in 1877 in 12 parts, inspired by Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor. This was part of the shift from thinking of the Poor as the fiction-ridden enemy and looking upon them as a social problem which could be strategically and tactically addressed.
Street Life consists of 36 photographs, each with an accompanying essay written by a tireless reporter and observer who aligned himself with the "scientific" or sociological perspectives, rather than the ideological tirades and fear-mongering of so many of his peers. The photographer composed pictures which captured the surrounding milieu with the worker, "realism" without added drama.… (meer)