The Court, New York

Here Paul Strand reacted against an earlier trend in photography to imitate painting so photography would be more readily recognized as a fine art. Strand promoted what came to be known as straight photography, made (as he put it) “without tricks of process or manipulation.” In the years shortly before he made this image, Strand began experimenting with abstraction; acquired an 8 × 10–inch camera, and produced a film, Manhatta (1920–21); with artist Charles Sheeler. Such activities are reflected in this photograph, in which Strand angled his large-format camera downward to capture the geometric forms of the rooftops in striking detail. The angle echoes a scene from his own film that depicted the urban bustle of lower Manhattan.