Working Hands

by Rick Williams

Texas A&M University Press, 127 pp., $45

This exquisite photo essay references the hands of Texan workers in its title, but it’s the worn countenances of a parade of cowboys, oilers, and techies that strike the emotional core of Rick Williams’ 20-year project. Working Hands documents the three primary economic and cultural fields in Texas — ranching, drilling, and microcomputer production — through a series of luscious black-and-white photographs that showcase Texans at work in their respective fields. Williams’ intention to reveal the “dynamic balance between grace and power” is realized through his ability to capture his subjects at their most vulnerable. How are we to interpret the solemn faces of ranchers as they herd cattle among the sweeping plains of West Texas? Or the penetrating stares of factory workers, clothed in ghostly white suits up to their eyes? Williams offers a few ideas of his own in several brief passages, but it’s the eyes that have it in this spread of photographs. Williams tracks the progression of technology, from its most basic form to an age where the hands of workers are all but obsolete. The results are quite symbolic, and the power of Working Hands stems from the idea that we are the ones who construct the symbols. Williams simply provides the ingredients.

This article appears in December 15 • 2000.

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