Praise for Paul Strand

[Troll]

I have always enjoyed Paul Strand's amazing close-up photographs of

down-and-outs, such as the "Blind Beggar," and the "Sandwich Sign

Man." But only recently did I come to realize that they were made in

the very dangerous gang-infested Five Points area of New York City,

which in the 1900s was like the South Bronx today in terms of crime

and personal danger from those gangs. And he did it with a Big old

Graflex tucked under his arm. In addition to making some of the

seminal photographs of the 29th Century (Wall St, White Fence), I

don't believe that he has ever received recognition for this

incredibly brave act of reportage. WOW! What a guy!

[ellis_vener_photography]

Strand is one the most influential photographers. Photographers are

influenced by his visionary work even if they are unaware of his name. If you

want to be a better photographer, you have to look at his work. There is so

much there that looks as modern as today but has been so influential in

underpinning modern photography that you feel like you've seen it all of your

life.<P>

The following has nothing to do with his lifetime of making great photographs

but recently I read an anecdote about Strand and thought to should pass it

on.<P> Up until very late in his life it was nearly impossible to get a real

photographic print made by Strand. Someone, a dealer i think, persuaded

him to start selling his orginal print. He finally gave in with one caveat: "If

Ansel (Adams) gets $1,000 for a print, I want $10,000!" And he got it! After

living pretty modestly he supposedly died a millionaire.

[Troll]

That should have read: 20th Century.

[ellis_vener_photography]

He always seemed to be ahead of his time!

[domenico_foschi]

The man was a true artist .

He pointed his finger on human condition with passionate

vision , no other photographers so successfully managed to

describe the relationship of human nature with a world that "

Progress " had constructed pushing Man away from his own

dignity.

Photographically speaking he is one of the pioneers who

stretched the boundaries of subject matter and interpretation.

Ellis is right when he says that is work is still is a must know for

todays photographers. His sensitivity is timeless.

[tom_westbrook]

Strand is truly one of photography's greatest masters. His work always takes my breath away with its force and honesty. Absolutely amazing photographs.<p>My two favorite Strand quotes: <blockquote>The artist's world is limitless. It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep.-Paul Strand<p> Everytime I find a film or paper that I like, they discontinue it. -Paul Strand</blockquote>

[geoffrey_james]

I went to visit Strand in Orgeval in 1968. I had written asking to interview him for a Quebec magazine, Vie des Arts. In the village cafe I asked instructions to the house, and got the distinct impression that Monsieur Strand was not a beloved figure. Oddly for someone who idolized the peasant, he had not learned any French. He received me civilly -- the farm house was very beautiful -- with some small things, if I remember correctly, by Bonnard and Vuillard, the last artists he said he liked. He simply didn't want to talk about the radical early work, including BLIND and the white picket fence. He explained that he did his books like films, with a script and a story-line to follow. He was very much an old line marxist. After lunch his wonderful wife Hazel was sent out to close the shutters, and we were presented with the mounted prints of Egypt propped up in front of two lights against a chair back (a rather elegant red plush chair.) My own feelings about Strand are a bit complicated. In any event, we could not run the piece, because it would have taken 6 months to get prints, and he was charging a fee of $400 each, which was a lot in those days. He did actually make the remark about "them" discontinuing products he liked, in this case Ilfomar, which for me was the best paper ever made. He saw us to the car, and when he spotted a Leica on the seat became much friendlier. In those days I could not have called myself a photographer. I couldn't have been because I didn't take any pictures

[Troll]

He could afford to be an old-line Marxist because he could live on a steady income from his father's estate.

[._._z]

Bill, are you sure you aren't confusing Strand with Stieglitz? My understanding is that Alfred Stieglitz was left a substantial inheritance by his father, not Strand from his immigrant father.

[Troll]

In "Paul Strand, Sixty Years of Photographs" published by Aperture it says: "...Strand no longer needed to earn a living. After years of marginal struggling, his father had become quite succesful in business -- among other things, he was the distributor of Domes of Silence, the little metal devices that keep chair feet from scraping the floor. Jacob Strand believed in what his son was doing, wanted to help him, and did so." I read somewhere that Walker Evans was really pissed all his life that Strand, Steiglitz, and Cartier-Bresson were supported by rich parents. He also thought that Ansel Adams had family money, but didn't know that they had lost it all, and Ansel had married into a gold mine who held the Yosemite Park concession. Another great photographer who married money was Edward Weston, whose first wife was a Chandler of California. Except for Steiglitz, all these guys worked their butts off to make it on their own, even though they didn't have to.

[mark_tucker2]

Bill,

 

Thanks for the excuse to pull down my Strand book, "Am

American Vision". I hadn't looked at it in quite a while. Yes,

amazing to see what he was doing, so many years ago. There is

a small image in that book, of chickens, shot in 1911. One of my

favorites ever.

 

-MT, http://marktucker.com

[michael_a._smith1]

Strand was indeed one of the great photographers. And it sure is

a lot easier when you have family money. (Sure wish I had

some.) Weston married a Chandler, and I always thought that he

had to have access to at least some of the Chandler money.

(The Chandler's owned the LA Times). But he didn't. Flora was a

distant member of the family and EW never saw a cent of the

Chandler fortune.

[ken_hughes3]

Bill, Adams worked his butt off most of his life because he had to. The Yosemite connection was no gold mine. read the autobiography or the bio by alinder

[geoffrey_james]

Bill,

 

He didn't get any money until quite late. He had to do all kinds of menial work -- Princeton group shots and horse races with his Akeley camera. He was always quite bitter and resentful. There is a beautifully shot film about him by a Toronto film-maker named Joh Walker. It's one of the very few films that treats still images with respect. It's a bit too much a hagiography for my taste, but worth watching. He was very much in with the Photographic League people, who were real New York radicals. For some reason the book that Marcia Tucker was supposed to be doing on the League never came out. I think there is a lot of sensitive political stuff here.

[henry_suryo]

Once asked by Beaumont Newhall, who was doing a history of photography exhibition at the MOMA, about whose work should be exhibited in the museum's four floors, Strand replied," The first floor should be all David Octavius Hill. The second floor should be Eugene Atget. Give the third floor completely to Alfred Stieglitz. And on the fourth floor you should have Strand."

[tim_atherton2]

the aperture book is on sale:

 

http://www.photoeye.com/OpenSearchRedirect.cfm?Catalog=AP031

 

there was an interesting tv programme about Steiglitz on tonight, with some time spent on Strand.

 

I didn't realise he took the portraits "blind" etc using a camera with a false lens to fool the subject

[nicholas_f._jones]

Calvin Tomkins in Paul Strand Sixty Years of Photographs (the Aperture monograph mentioned above), p. 19 on Strand's hidden camera: "I suddenly got the idea of making portraits of people the way you see them in New York parks--sitting around, not posing, not conscious of being photographed," he recalled. Strand's solution was to take the shiny brass lens from his uncle's old view camera and attach it to one side of his Ensign reflex. By holding the camera so that the false lens pointed straight ahead and the real lens stuck out under his left arm, partly concealed by his sleeve, he was able to photograph someone at right angles to the apparent subject." Etc. Etc. "Blind Woman" was made this way, the text continues. Bill, are you suggesting that Strand concealed his camera because it would be dangerous to do otherwise?

 

How about that street scene, pl. 38, "Fifth Avenue, New York 1915"? Lots of well-turned out formally dressed folks in broad daylight. This isn't the South Bronx I remember from the 1970s when I got on the wrong subway train at 2:00 am--never been so scared in my life. Then there's South Central LA where I began my life, South of Market ("The Tenderloin") in SF, plus others I've seen. Same goes for "City Hall Park, New York, 1915" in the Masters of Photography collection, pp. 11-12. I can't help but think that the real point is that he was able to pull off these verite candids with the bulky large format equipment of the time. Stieglitz was impressed; he found Strand's work "brutally direct" and "the direct expression of today" (p. 20). He's pointing a contrast with pictorialism, of course. But your comments seem to represent Strand as a sort of modern photojournalist street shooter, risking his well-being in service of a cause. Am I understanding your point correctly?

[richard_trochlil]

Re; his famous shot in the Hebrides. Some day somebody is going to explain to me how he trained those horses to appear in the photo in althernate shades of dark and light.

 

Good trick. Actually, I suppose the answer is that "I was there with a camera."

 

Anyway, my favorite photo of his.