Lewis Wickes Hine was an American sociologist and photographer. Lewis Hine used his camera as a tool for social reform. His photographs were instrumental in changing child labor laws in the United States. He was born on September 26, 1874, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He died on November 3, 1940, in Dobbs Ferry, New York.

Lewis Hines was a photographer known for his documentation of exploited child workers and government projects. In 1904, Lewis Hine photographed immigrants on Ellis Island, as well as at the tenements and sweatshops where they lived and worked.

Hine was one of the masters of a new camera called the Graflex. For the first fifty years of photography, the photographer had to compose and focus his picture upside-down on a ground glass in the back of his camera, then insert the holder that held the sensitive plate. Once the plate was in the camera, the photographer was shooting blind, unable to change either his framing or his focusing.

In 1911, Lewis Hine was hired by the National Child Labor Committee to record child labor conditions, and he produced horrific pictures of exploited children. During World War I, Hines worked as a photographer with the Red Cross and later photographed the construction of the Empire State Building.

Some influences of Lewis Hine were seeing children as young as 8 years old working long hours in dangerous and very harsh conditions.

The reason I chose this photographer is because I really admire how he dedicated his life to showing the world how adults are treating small innocent children and what they made them do.