Lathe, Akeley Shop, New York

By 1922 Paul Strand was a prominent member of several fine-art photography circles but struggled to support himself financially. He purchased an Akeley motion picture camera that summer with hopes of getting work as a freelance filmmaker. This coincided with the height of Strand’s fascination with the machine aesthetic and his enthusiasm for the “absolute unqualified objectivity” of photography in what he considered to be its purest state. Over the following year, Strand repeatedly photographed his new film camera, along with the various machines in the Akeley repair shop, in a series of close-up, sharply focused studies that emanate scientific exactitude and masterful craftsmanship. He later wrote, “[I] tried to photograph the power and marvelous precision which the very functional forms, surfaces, and lines of a machine reflect.” Although Strand’s passion for the machine would soon wane, his commitment to a clear, unadulterated photographic depiction remained constant throughout his career.