“Blind”

BLIND

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PAUL STRAND

Genre: Portrait

Date: 1916

Format: Large-format

Location: New York, New York, USA

“In 1909, American photographer Paul Strand (1890-1976) completed his studies Andre the social reformer and photographer Lewis Hine at the Ethical Cultural Fieldston School in New York. Hine introduced Strand to Alfred Stieglitz, founder of the Photo-Secession group and publisher of the influential magazine Camera Work.

Strand began producing abstract photographs in 1915 that were notable for their use of shadow, rhythmic shapes, simplified forms and artful composition. The last double edition of Camera Work in 1917 was dedicated to Strand’s work, and included this image of a blind street beggar on the street of New York. Blind is one of series of street photographs that Strand took with a handheld camera fitted with a prismatic lens, which allowed him to point his camera in one direction while taking a photograph at a ninety-degree angle. The decoy lens that he was able to take photographs without his subjects being aware, because they thought he was photographing something else – an act that has promoted ethical debate on the role of photographers and their relationships with their subjects. In this case, the subject is also blind, further calling into question the morality of capturing images of people unaware. At the time, the photograph was hailed for its modernism; today, it functions well as provocative and poignant piece of social documentation. Blind serves to reveal the dehumanization of the partially sighed in the early 20th century, as this woman has to beg for a living and wears a placard akin to a dog collar to advertise her plight. (CKpbyd)

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