In 1930, Margaret Bourke-White became the first Western photographer allowed into the Soviet Union. Visiting the new mining town of Magnitogorsk in the remote Ural Mountains she recorded this image of industrial workers at the circus. Her powerful image creates a compelling sense of mesmerized spectatorship and spectacle. In the classic one-ring circus (more common in European countries than the American three-ring variety) all attention is focused on a single point creating an intimate rapport between audience and performer. Here the faces of the audience reflect bright electric light as they take in what is most likely a high-wire act that occurs above them. By omitting the object of the crowd’s rapt attention, Bourke-White shifts the focus onto the act of looking.