In the manner of Paul Strand

Paul Strand's photographs of an Amish village are among the icons. I must confess that my opinion is sort of "One or two are fine. A whole gallery or book full of them is too much." That said, when I saw the sunlight on our deck one spring morning "Paul Strand" popped into my mind and I went to find my tripod.

Students of painting, drawing, and sculpture (at least those who are training in the classic tradition) spend a lot of time copying the works of the masters. This practice obviously develops the student's skill with the chosen medium but it also forces the student to spend a lot of time looking at works that are deemed by somebody or other to be worthy of study.  They see, and hope to reproduce, not only how the work was executed but how it was organized and how the content was presented.   They are educating their eye as well as their eye-hand skills.  I wonder if budding abstract expressionist painters copy the works of Phillip Guston, Wilem de Kooning, et al?   If so, what are they looking for?  

Here's a speculation.  Why don't students of photography do this?  Photography classes are rich in camera handling, darkroom or computer technique but short on looking at photographs and, especially, trying to understand how master work (by some standard or other) photographs were made.  There are certainly some practical matters that legislate against trying to explicitly copy a master work but if my goal is to copy how Paul Strand saw light falling on a white picket fence I don't need to go to where he photographed . I can work "in the manner of" looking at morning sunlight on our deck.

While looking for something else (the usual way I find something I didn't remember) I found this negative. Several (ahem) years ago my wife and I went with these friends to a wonderful show of Alexander Calder's Kinetic Sculpture at the Albright-Knox Art Museum in Buffalo. The show was not as spectacular as the recent show of his work at SAM but the great hall in the entry certainly was a splendid place to show this work.