Near the Waterfront is a color photograph by Jack Delano, created sometime between nineteen forty-one and nineteen eighty-five. The image is a dye transfer print, a rich color printing process known for its deep tones and fine detail. The photograph measures about seven inches tall and ten inches wide. It is displayed in a landscape orientation, meaning the longest side runs parallel to the ground. It is bordered by a dark green frame with softly rounded corners. The overall tone of the image is cool and bluish, giving the scene a somber, cloudy atmosphere. The setting appears to be a rural or semi-industrial neighborhood, photographed on a grey, overcast day. In the foreground, a car is captured in motion, traveling across a narrow street. The street runs horizontally near the bottom of the image and is lined with fences and a utility pole with wires overhead. These elements set the stage for the quiet, weathered neighborhood that follows. Lining the street in the middle of the composition is a row of five houses. All appear to be two stories tall, built with wood panel siding, and topped with triangular pitched roofs. The first three houses are white. The fourth seems to be constructed of reddish-brown brick, and the fifth, furthest back, may be yellow, though the exact color is softened by the cast of the photograph. These houses suggest a continued row that extends beyond the frame. Behind the homes, to the left, stand bare trees stripped of leaves. Adding to the bleak and quiet mood. On the far right edge of the photo, there are two large industrial scaffoldings shaped like vertical cylinders. These towers are both taller and wider than the houses, perhaps twice their size. They dominate this side of the image and begin to shift the scene from domestic to industrial. In the far distance, the tallest structures in the composition rise above everything else. The smokestacks of a factory. Only the tops are visible, but they emit thick clouds of smoke that blend with the overcast sky. These towers anchor the background and hint at the larger industrial presence just beyond the neighborhood. Altogether, there is a quiet tension between the domestic and the industrial, the lived-in and the looming. The cool blue tint and cloudy weather emphasize a sense of stillness and melancholy and presents a layered image where home and industry exist side by side under a muted sky.