Paul Strand: A Look Back in Time: Paul Strand Self-Portrait

Photo Credit: https://www.artsy.net/artist/paul-strand

Paul Strand Biography

Paul Strand was an extremely innovative photographer, filmmaker, and visionary. Through his lengthy career, he received many awards and was highly decorated and admired. Born October 16, 1890 in New York, Strand found a love for photography at an early age. At the age of seventeen he began to study under Lewis Hine and learn the skills and thrills of photography through him. Studying under Hine could have potentially shaped the way he will later photograph portraits. As time passed, Strand encountered Alfred Stieglitz and received much inspiration to continue his work. Around 1915, Strand became less interested in the painter-like, soft focus, photographs of the pictorialist movement and vastly interested in sharpness and detail available with a large-format camera. This brought about the movement known as “straight photography.” This radically shaped Strand’s career. Roughly about five years later, Paul Strand’s focus switched from capturing architectural and geometric structures towards what was actually occurring in the world around him politically. This shift in his career brought about many travels around the globe. He moved to France and began to explore the culture there. Strand also spent time in Mexico, where his assimilated himself into the culture to an extent to teaching elementary school. From there he photographed the villages of New England, the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, Ghana and many other places. Towards the end of Strand’s life he began to focus on nature and plant life. During this time he produced phenomenal images of Iris plant leaves and twigs that have landed in a way that the movement created by the lines of the sticks become mesmerizing. This was Paul Strand’s last work and it was never fully completed. Paul Strand died on March 31, 1976 in Oregeval, France.

* Stange, Maren. Paul Strand: Essays on his life and work. New york: Aperture, 1990.

Paul Strand: A Look Back in Time

Thursday, May 5, 2016

Paul Strand Self-Portrait

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