Photo Analysis, Of A Picture!

The first thing I notice about this photo is the setting: blue collar, Southern, midday or early afternoon. The balance of organizational power is obviously in the presence of the two white gentlemen in closer frame. It would be far too easy to imagine the southern drawl and delicately constructed pejorative slights that are exchanged between the two in obvious interaction. The field hands sit behind the overseer as if waiting to be driven or moved into more labor by a snap or command. I assume that the overseer is the portly white fellow with his foot on the bumper in the global "I am a man with sweaty balls" posture. He looks just as we would expect him in his contrast to his lean yet idle workers, this character illustrates itself with an almost cookie-cutter efficiency into the imagination of anyone familiar with the villains of Mississippi Burning, The Color Purple or (Gasp!) Deliverance.  Even the style of clothes worn by the two white men in contrast to the field hands just clobbers one with a racist two-by-four.
Being myself raised in a stagnant, suburban community established by Alabaster Whitey McGenocide The Third, I associate a man in this fellow's posture with the disapproving father of temporary girlfriend number seventy-five as he watches me approach, but this connection is irrelevant.
This photo simply and eloquently demonstrates the emotive nature of a shaky and difficult time in American history where the wounds of slavery were still the scars of segregation and the South exemplified every bit the term "situated unrest." Imagination beyond the frame of the photo would show vast fields of cotton or hemp in a sweltering southern sun. The title chosen for this photo could be misleading as well so I have crafted my own to enhance the experience:

Alternate Photo Titles

1)-Plantation Overseer Takes Everyone Out For Ice Cream and Cigarettes!

2)-Atticus Confronts Bob Ewell In Front Of Tom Robinson's House.

3)-Finally! We Locked The Keys Inside Hours Ago.
4)-Plantation Overseer And His Field Hands Wait For Little Stevie's Birthday Party To Finish So They Can Get A Turn With The Newfangled Southern Lazer-Tag Arena.

In all seriousness, this photo is indicative of some serious social inequality that is still present in the American Psyche.