Here are two objects — but maybe one work? — from the great show of Susan Meiselas’s first real photographic project, titled “44 Irving Street, 1970-1971,” on view through Aug. 2 at Higher Pictures gallery in DUMBO, NYC.

Taking a Harvard photo course, Meiselas worked with a four-by-five camera to document the residents of the rooming house she lived in, showing her shots alongside their subjects’ written takes on their living situation and on Meiselas’s portraits of them.

I’m blown away by this precocious example of the marriage of image and text that became so common a decade or more later. And by the young Meiselas’s interest in a full collaboration between photographer and sitter, as can still seem like a bold move today in the hands of someone like LaToya Ruby Frazier.

In 1971, the idea of the stand-alone, expressive “fine-art print” still held sway in most photographic circles. I’m amazed that the young Meiselas had the courage to “pollute” her photos with texts that she hadn’t even written herself, and that by definition couldn’t express anything about her — except a desire to make the most compelling art she knew how.

Who knew that the great documentary photographs that went on to make Meiselas so famous had roots in a project that feels more like conceptual art?

(“Joan, 44 Irving Street 1970-1971,” and “Joan’s letter, 44 Irving Street 1970-1971,” are courtesy Meiselas/Magnum Photos)