This cabinet card features two tough looking guys, wearing derby hats, and standing outside a ramshackled shed. Who are these men and what are they doing? This may be an occupational photograph. Note the baskets and the barrel. Is that a scale that one of the guys is leaning against? Is that a horseshoe above the shed’s door. This may be a mining scene; or perhaps an agricultural image. Hopefully, someone will leave a comment that makes an educated guess concerning what this image depicts. There is no identifying information concerning the subject, location, or photographer associated with this photograph.
THE CABINET CARD GALLERY 
Oh Wow!
What a photo. I think the baskets are cotton baskets, but I could be wrong. I would date it c. 1883. I don’t think they are wearing cowboy boots. Men west of Missouri have a tendency to wear boots. I suspect it is in the back of some sort of a shop.
Okay, they are leaning on a scale. My father had one at his flour mill. The baskets are for weighing something. The metal in the background is for some sort of a building – perhaps a mill of some sort?
It isn’t in the south. It’s not mining. I would suspect Illinois, northern midwest, and would think it is agriculture. It is definitely not the “wild west” and is not the south. It is not mining, not cotton. The scale is connected to the building next door. Something is weighed their, processed and taken to the other building.
Corn?
SJR
The Pink Flamingo
This is on the deck of a vessel, looking aft. There’s no sigh of rigging, so it may be a powered vessel or (more likely) the rig is all struck (taken down) for the winter. It may be a stationary vessel, or barge, where fishing boats could offload their catch.
Oysters, maybe? Similar baskets:
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2001696865/resource/
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2002723686/resource/
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/det1994000882/PP/resource/
Before I read the second comment I was going to suggest that it was taken on a wharf. The ropes at left go down towards something in the water, perhaps boats and the tide is out.
That is indeed a scale. I used to own one, and it’s more properly termed a platform scale, used for weighing items in large containers very easily – up to perhaps a couple of hundred pounds, and to a fair degree of accuracy. I suspect it was used to weight the baskets when they were full of … well, fish, naturally.
The wooden barrel could have been used for fresh water or perhaps for salting fish.
I think the dark pipe to the left of the shorter man is a chimney, and I wonder if that is some kind of smokehouse.
The deck which they’re standing on looks suitably dirty, smeared with all sorts of disgusting stuff, as you might expect from a fish-processing facility.
To the right, the highed board must be a window shutter, to protect from a howling gale.
Those same sort of baskets were also used for collecting dulse into the mid-1900s (I actually have sitting here in my office ingloriously holding maps). So it could be Maine or New Brunswick (or the Fundy side of Nova Scotia.)