A picture is worth 1000 words!

4th Grade Students

Art photography as prompts for writing

Henri Cartier-Bresson

French, b. 1908, d. 2004

Lunch Atop a Skyscraper (1932)

Lunch atop a Skyscraper (New York Construction Workers Lunching on a Crossbeam) is a famous photographtaken by Charles C. Ebbets during construction of the GE Building at Rockefeller Center in 1932.

The photograph depicts 11 men eating lunch, seated on a girder with their feet dangling hundreds of feet above the New York City streets. Ebbets took the photo on September 29, 1932, and it appeared in the New York Herald Tribune in its Sunday photo supplement on October 2. Taken on the 69th floor of the GE Building during the last several months of construction, the photo Resting on a Girder shows the same workers napping on the beam.

Migrant Mother (1936), Dorothea Lange
For many, this picture of Florence Owens Thompson (age 32) represents the Great Depression. She was the mother of 7 and she struggled to survive with her kids catching birds and picking fruits. Dorothea Lange took the picture after Florence sold her tent to buy good for her children. She made the first page of major newspapers all over the country and changed people’s conception about migrants.