The Photographic Career of Jacob Riis

Limited by the very backward photography technology at the time, Jacobs worked hard to truly and vividly represent the scenes in his news works. He once tried adding his own sketches to news reports, only to be disappointed.

In 1887, German scientist Adolf Miethe and others successfully created a flash using a mixture of magnesium, potassium, sulfide and other substances, making flash photography technically possible.

Under the light of science and technology, Jacob confidently called several of his friends and started a flash photography career. They took many photographs of the conditions of slum living conditions in the darkness of night. The spirit of some of the photography became the basis for Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives (1890).

Many of Jacob Riis’s photographs were taken in darkness. New York City's slums, filthy and overcrowded tenement apartments, all forms of poverty, and the crime that accompanies it became the main subjects of his photography and became a window into the American people's understanding of social ills.