Paul Strand ( ) In high school he studied at the Ethical Cultural School under Lewis Hine. Stieglitz became his mentor after Hine took them on a trip to 291, Stieglitz’s Gallery. Stieglitz was initially hard on Strand because he saw Strand’s potential as a young photographer; he eventually gave Strand his first solo exhibition. Strand helped to promote photography as art. He followed in the Photo-Secession movement. This movement, also referred to as Pictorialism, focused on making photos look like other art forms, such as drawings and paintings. His “principal themes: movement in the city, abstractions, and street portraits.” ( His abstractions were inspired by the modern art movement, Cubism. There was a pull for him between humanity and passion vs. the camera’s objectivity as a machine. Photographs relationship to time and place were evident in his later work; these were turned into books. Strand came to believe that a photograph shouldn’t just be about an artist’s emotions (contrary to Stielglitz’s opinion and especially his series called Equivalents). They parted ways.

Alfred Stieglitz at Lake George taken by Paul Strand, American,

Large-format camera with film holder being inserted in front of ground-glass viewing screen.

Platinum Process: 6DFZ3wfft44 Gelatin Silver Process: iSBFrPWPS80 Photo Gravure: “Photogravure is an intaglio printmaking or photo-mechanical process whereby a copper plate is coated with a light-sensitive gelatin tissue which had been exposed to a film positive, and then etched, resulting in a high quality intaglio print that can reproduce the detail and continuous tones of a photograph.”

Go to And search collection for Paul Strand or other photographers To see an artist working in the darkroom, view the beginning of this video: