Something to be Thankful For

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Kolman Rosenberg

Ellis Island immigrant view.

We all have much to be thankful for and Thanksgiving is the one day a year when we all give that subject some thought. We may do so throughout the year, but at least on this day we give the subject some serious consideration.

I captured this photo in 2003 and as soon as I saw this scene, from the Great Hall at Ellis Island, I immediately thought of my ancestors and the ancestors of so many others who may have stood on the same spot and gazed out at the same scene through the misty harbor and were so grateful to have arrived in this great country. Even today, 8 years later, this photo puts a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye every time I look at it. Whether our ancestors came through Ellis Island or not, this country has given us all much to be thankful for!

Have a happy Thanksgiving everyone!

About Kolman Rosenberg

My interest in photography began as a college newspaper and yearbook photographer during the stormy 1960s and 1970s. I was influenced by many of the great photojournalists and documentary photographers such as W. Eugene Smith, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Gordon Parks, Margaret Bourke-White and other black and white photographers of Life Magazine and the earlier Farm Security Administration. Though many of these photographers documented the horrors of war and the plight of poverty, they also showed me the dignity and adaptability of human beings in their desire to prevail.

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