What contribution did paul strand make to photography?

Paul strand (1890 ~ 1976) was called "a milestone in the history of photography in the 20th century" by critics. He published nine photo albums in his life and made outstanding contributions to the development of photography.

Strand was born in new york, 1907. In the class of new york Ethics and Culture School, he began to know photography under the guidance of biology teacher and documentary photographer Lewis Hayne.

19 12 years, strand became a commercial photographer, and in the following years, he met Shi Tigri. During this period, I was very interested in the photos exhibited by Sch Tigri in Hall 29 1. 19 16, and his own photos are also on display here. These photos are real, and some common things are recorded objectively, including white fences, plants with strong lines, corridors of rural houses, dishes in the kitchen and so on. These works, because of their clear colors, concise pictures and strong sense of form, aroused great interest and were appreciated by Shi Tigri. In the last two issues of "Photos" of 19 17, Shi Tigri published photos of strand, and the last issue was published in full.

Strand was a representative figure who opposed photo photography in the early 20th century. He advocates giving full play to the specialty of photography and bringing people back to real daily life from the dream world created by art photographers. In his work "Blind Girl", the realistic picture formed by dark background, rough shadow lines and signs on the chest is incompatible with the sweet and sentimental illusory picture of photo photography, and the value scale of beauty has a new standard here. In strand, the pursuit of "beauty" in photo photography is not important. For him, understanding and expressing the real life itself is more important.

Strand believes that the purest method of photography is to shoot "objectively" by "direct" photography, so that the picture has no traces of production and control. At the same time, he realized that photographers should also be creators. Recording objects only by objective means will bring certain limitations to photography and make the picture lack the charm of modeling. In order to overcome this limitation, he devoted himself to observing and understanding various patterns formed in nature, and extracted unique forms from them.

In order to take what people are used to, make an impact image. Strand often omits things like the horizon, and chooses his shooting point from a seemingly obviously compressed space that can only be seen through the changes of architectural details. In the white fence, he focused on the fence as the dividing line. A white fence runs through the foreground, and there is a house and a barn in the distance. After this arrangement, the fence presents a vicissitudes of life reflection on the dark ground. At the same time, the sense of distance is omitted, and various forms overlap and disappear in the shadow, which makes the picture have a strange effect of lacking perspective and strong sense of form.

Strand once clearly expressed his thoughts:

Observe the things around you, observe the nearest world around you. If you are sensitive, you can find something; If you shoot with your heart and know how to shoot, you will shoot the connotation of things.

This concept of photography has influenced many photographers. When ansel adams first saw strand's works, he said this:

His photos let me know that I should continue.