Her Busy Day in 1931

This was one of Annie Powell’s first of 16 shots Annie Powell took on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 1931. She got up before dawn to record this at St. Jean Baptiste Church, corner of Aiken and Merrimack Sts.

A driver for the City Engineers would have picked her up at her tenement building to take her and her heavy equipment around the city.

We can just about make out the “Lowell City Engineers” advertising here on the side panel.

In front of the church, she took a second photo of broken sidewalks.

This time, she worked hard to make art, not just with careful composition. But also, when she got back to her darkroom in the Lowell Highlands that night.

The sun was coming from the upper left part of this image. 

So this was the only natural shadow.

Other shadows seemed to defy the laws of physics. 

They seem to have followed Annie’s own artistic laws of composition and interest. If we look at the negative version, we get a sense of how much she used chemicals and abrasives to retouch her glass plate negative,

In many other City Engineers photos taken from about 1914 to 1932, Annie used herself as a model. Here, we see what is likely herself at age 72. She documented the streets of Lowell for about another 10 years.