Paul Strand

In 1917 Paul Strand said that if one were to use photography honestly he must have "a real respect for the thing in front of him," which he would express "through a range of almost infinite tonal values which lie beyond the skill of human hand." The last half of the statement has to do with photographic aesthetics, the first half with photographic morality. "A real respect for the thing in front of him" implies that the subject is not merely the occasion but the reason for the picture.

This stern creed (rather than technical and aesthetic positions) was perhaps the real cornerstone of belief in straight photography. It was a proposition more or less accepted by most advanced photographers, especially in the United States, between the two World Wars. Accepted at least in theory. Practice was another matter; photographers had after all become photographers because they enjoyed the mysterious and often nonrational excitement of picture-making.

It is interesting that Strand himself conformed to his theory more strictly as he matured. His work before 1920 exhibits a highly abstract bent and an obvious pleasure in graphic adventures. As the years passed his pictures became progressively more natural and more calm.

One of the most beautiful and most influential parts of Strand's heroic oeuvre is the series of closeup nature studies that he began in the early twenties. These pictures are not merely descriptions of particular botanical or geological forms; they are, rather, miniature landscapes, organized with the same rigor and described with the same sensitivity to light and space that Strand would have accorded a grand vista. When the great wild continent had been finally conquered, Strand rediscovered the rhythms of the wilderness in microcosm.

from "Looking at Photographs" by John Szarkowski