A face that has the marks of having lived intensely, that expresses some phase of life, some dominant quality or intellectual power, constitutes for me an interesting face. For this reason the face of an older person, perhaps not beautiful in the strictest sense, is usually more appealing than the face of a younger person who has scarcely been touched by life.
What does this picture mean to you?
I see a free man, well dressed, with hands that look like they have seen work and eyes that squint and seem not to believe that this woman wants to take a picture of him. I see the chain near him and wonder if he ever had an experience in which someone used such a chain to hurt him or someone he cared about just because of the darkness of his skin. It makes me feel thankful that he is free and unchained and sorry that slavery and abuse ever happened and left their mark on the American psyche.