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There is a rather famous photograph known as The Man-made Lightning Strike. It was taken by photographer Richard Devise and it catapulted him to notoriety, allowing him to continue his photography business even after the stock market crashed two years after the famous photo was taken. It was initially printed in the Philadelphia Inquirer but Devise was approached directly by the New York Times where it spread internationally. Later, it was displayed in the Julien Levy gallery and Time magazine included it in its list of the 100 most influential photographs of the 20th century.
The Man-made Lightning Strike captures a teenage boy’s death. It was a pure accident. A fluke of timing. Richard Devise had wanted a picture of the Philadelphia city goers and the running boy had been an intriguing figure, carrying a travelling case but wearing no coat or hat despite the harsh, strong wind. When he went to take the picture, Devise could not have known that the power line overhead would fall and one end of it would hit the boy just as the photograph was taken.
The still electrified power line brushes the back of the boy’s neck in the captured moment of death. The boy’s face is mostly in shadow but what is visible is a highly ambiguous expression.
The photo generated controversy, many found its subject matter morbid and criticised Devise for profiting off a child’s death. Others politicised it as an example of the dangers of careless technology. Later regulation for the improvement of safety procedures for power lines in Philadelphia cannot directly be attributed to The Man-made Lightning Strike, but it is a significant moment in cultural histories of technological acceptance. The photo was later used by people campaigning against the use of the electric chair, although not with great success as proponents of the electric chair were swift to point out the false equivalence between an execution method that was broadly considered humane, and a tragic death caused by accident.
Later investigation into The Man-made Lightning Strike have concerned themselves with the subject. A 1937 retrospective on the photograph by a Philadelphia Inquirer journalist uncovered that the boy, who was unidentified at his death with no family coming forward to claim the body, was named Wincenty Witek and was born in Pennsylvania to two working Polish immigrants. It was unclear if he was fifteen or sixteen at the time of his death as his birth certificate had been lost. Wincenty died mere hours after his father’s funeral, outliving the man by only five days. His widowed mother, Beata Witek, died in 1929 in unclear circumstances. There is debate amongst scholars about whether she took her own life or was in an unfortunate accident.
The Man-made Lightning Strike does not have the grip on the popular culture it had when it was first released but it remains a referenced image by filmmakers and avant-garde Instagram users the world over. In modern times, the photo has come to represent the tragedy of a life cut short and the fragility of mortality. Wincenty looks like he is in such a hurry, running through the street like that. The photograph seems to pose the question ‘what would he have been if he’d had the chance for a full life?’
What indeed.