Self PortraitAbout Paul Strand:
Paul Strand focussed on landscapes, portraits, architecture and abstraction. He was one of the first to use candid- camera technique. Candid-camera technique is "the use of a false lense mounted at a 90 degree angle to the real one." |
Anna Attinga Frafra, Accra, GhanaInfo:
Paul Strand was known to travel for his photography where he captured "place portraits." During the last thirty years of his life he traveled to places where "really compelling things were happening." One of these places were Ghana, Africa, where he captured this photo. This photo caught my eye because it is very different then other photos from the 1960's. “I often compare a photo of a student with books on her head and another photo of an elderly woman from the northern part of the country. The woman is identified as a political leader and she explains, in the course of her interview, that she regrets that she’s never had time to learn to read and write. So if you’re looking carefully, you realize that between the portrait of the girl in Accra with the books on her head and the women in the northern part of the country, you can see what it’s like in Ghana and where these two different people have come from. That’s really special access to that time and place, and very few photographers took the time to give us that kind of encounter with that kind of place and people.”
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