Unseen Realities: Sewage Work and Health Risks

In this image, a sewage worker is seen cleaning the drainage system, with his bear hands, without the use of either any equipment’s or protection. On the first glace, the image depicts the idea of health risk, because the man is exposed to such contaminants, which for him is work. He is looking up from a dirty drain, covered in filth, which shows that he is clearly used as the subject of this image, whom we are engaged to more as he is making eye contact with its viewers. This picture only includes one person into the frame, as the other man’s face isn’t available to see in this picture, which is man that is holding the bucket. Holding a bucket either emphasise the idea that he is helping the sewage worker, either to get the dirt out or to put the dirt in the drainage system.

“The photograph both mirrors and creates a discourse with the world, and is never, despite its often passive way with things, a neutral representation”. On many bases, an individual’s interpretation is usually based on what they can visually see rather then the message behind what they see. What I believe Clarke meant by the following statement, is that it is vital to acknowledge an image by not just what it is representing or portraying but also the meaning it is delivering. The viewers who view this image, can see how the image is interpreted to show the dirty

Having such an image before our eyes, often we fail to recognize the message it is trying to display from a certain point of view. Through Clark’s statement, it is evident that a photograph holds a graphic message, which mirrors the representation of our way of thinking with the world sights, which therefore engages other