By XI MEITI

Western Media Correspondent

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – Freelance photographer David Hammond speculated yesterday that classic shots he recently took of a migrant worker, squatting on the sidewalk and lighting a cigarette, could finally give him a shot at the big time.

“I was walking past this building site when I saw him: face smeared in grime, hands dripping with tar. He looked bone-weary, probably in need of just a few solitary minutes of quiet self-reflection — just him and his cigarette,” said Hammond.

“I immediately went over and started taking his picture.”

It was only when Hammond developed the snaps the next day that he realized he may have at last struck gold.

“Look at this guy — if these snaps don’t soon appear in a photography exhibition in Brooklyn about China’s rapid urbanization and marginalized peasant class, I don’t know what will,” declared a satisfied Hammond.

“I can easily see this guy doing a 28-hour train journey back to his home province, while standing the whole way because he cannot afford a sleeper. He will almost cetainly be carrying two large hessian sacks containing his entire worldly goods,” Hammond added. “It’s quite possible this fellow will die of black-lung disease in his mid-40s, leaving behind an penniless wife and a child doomed to a rootless existence of makeshift work. He’s perfect.”

Having further studied the images, Hammond revealed that he had not been this excited about one of his subjects since he captured a wide-angled close-up of a Shanxi peasant back in 2010, whose exhausted expression, Hammond explained, was juxtaposed by a enigmatic smile that revealed just two remaining teeth.

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