Paul Strand Still Life

Paul Strand Still Life - Pears and bowls
The two most significant early influences on Paul Strand were Lewis Hine and Alfred Stieglitz. In his course at the Ethical Culture School in New York, which Strand attended, Hine encouraged photographic documentation in the service of social reform. And Alfred Stieglitz, Strand's mentor for many years, viewed photography as a means to aesthetic reform. Strand channeled the sense of moral commitment to the photographic medium shared by both these men into his own photographs of everyday life, in which he attempted to combine social consciousness with aesthetic concerns by placing the city dweller within the context of the formal geometry of urban architecture. In 1916 and 1917, Stieglitz devoted the last two issues of "Camera Work" to Strand's photographs, proclaiming them the most original then being made in America. Critics praised the images for their directness, honesty, and objectivity and for the elimination of technical manipulation and handwork--all characteristics that have come to define the term "straight photography."

Strand began in 1916 to explore the structural principles of pictorial abstraction that he had absorbed from the Cubist works exhibited at 291 and other New York galleries. Summering at Twin Lakes, Connecticut, he incorporated porch furniture and kitchenware--materials readily at hand in a summer house--into his still-life compositions. These were the first photographs intentionally constructed as abstractions. The tightly framed, close-up investigation of domestic objects seen here is divested of the symbolic and allegorical underpinnings traditionally associated with still life, asserting instead the geometry of black-and-white tones juxtaposed as planar surfaces.

1. The artist Paul Strand uses shadow and light to contrast the outlines of shapes. The photographs that Strand takes boasts the shadows as they are elongated and the dark sections of the composition stand out the most, imposing the powers of uniformity and anonymity. Strand deliberately destroyed perspective to build a powerful composition from tonal planes and rhythmic patterns. He combined realism and abstraction is his photographs of landscapes and close up of rocks and plants. In doing this, he achieved a synthesis in a style he described as organic realism.

2.  The american artist paul strand had a long and productive career with the camera. His pictorialist studies of the 1910s, followed by the coolly seductive machine photograps of the 1920s, like the contemporary work of Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, helped define the canon of early American modernism and its premium on elegant print. Experimenting with Charles Sheeler, Strand then pushed further in describing the movement of the city in the short film Manhatta (1920). In the 1930s he became seriously involved with documentary film and, from the 1940s until the end of his life he was committed to making photographic books of the highest quality. After 1950, when he relocated to France, landscape, architecture, and portraiture (the traditional humanist genres) continued to inspire Strand to embody the spirit of his subjects in the very materials of the photographic print. The high regard for his mature work suggests that he succeeded in his goals, and that his standards of excellence and his constancy of subject answered very human needs in a century of radical change.

3. Write a paragraph discussing the work, it's lighting, mood, and how you think it was achieved (minimum of 50 words).

NewYork, Negative 1915; print 1916

Photogravure

5 1/5 × 6 1/2 in

13.2 × 16.4 cm

INSTITUTION:

J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Citation:

Artsy.net. (2016). Paul Strand | New York (Negative 1915; print 1916) | Artsy. [online] Available at: https://www.artsy.net/artwork/paul-strand-new-york [Accessed 19 Sep. 2016].

The light was in the top left corner of composition looking down onto the people walking away. The composition contrasts the people's shadow with the large dark structure, the people’s shadow is elongated and makes them seem bigger than they actually are. The people seem to be walking towards something, and the atmosphere seems dark, gloomy and depressing. I think that this photograph was achieved by setting a false lens on the camera so that they subject matter (people) didn’t notice that their photo was being taken, at a distance behind the people walking away from the camera at an angle.

Photography Assignment

This Photo is probably one of my best where I tried to copy or imitate Olive cottons practice of how she takes photos. The photo could have been better because the paper could have been smoother but other than that the shadows and the lighting came out very well. The light was placed in the bottom right as you can see witch casted a shadow onto the white sheet of paper behind it.
This one is probably my best because it has a much more defined shadow casted onto the piece of paper which is made because the light is a lot further away from the subject which makes a more sharp shadow.This I think really captures the work of cotton. The light in this photo is behind the camera to the left which is why it is casting the shadow behind the vase.
This Photo is definitely the 2nd best of all my photos because even though it is in focus and the shadow is almost perfect the light was supposed to be centered but as you can see by the shadow it wasn't.This is though a very good photo in my opinion because it is a teaching point in that you have to get it just right to make it a great photograph.

Photoshop Prac

Photos were Taken on the 5/9/16

This photo is good because the lighting in it is in the right position so you can kind of see the shadow being dragged out behind the subject which captures Olive cotton's work a little bit.


This photo is also capturing Olive's work because it also like the first photo has at least one dominant shadow that has been dragged out but there is some other visible shadows but they are very faint.