Untitled (44UN-7996-115), Ghana, 1958
Todd Webb
Archival pigment print
Courtesy of the Todd Webb Archive L2020.85.29
Not on View
A matrix of smokestacks, ship rigging, and oil platforms—Webb’s close view of Ghana’s working waterfront is layered with metal, wood, and wire with neither land nor sea in sight. A massive boat hull blocks the horizon, confining our perspective to a human-made world. In the foreground, nine men push a shipping container filled with 75 cylindrical barrels. The complex geometry of Webb’s photograph—built on rectangles, squares, triangles and circles—depicts a panorama of big industry and large-scale transnational trade.
Image: In Copyright. Courtesy of the Todd Webb Archive