It is one thing to photograph people. It is another to make others care about them by revealing the core of their humanness.

It was while on a fieldtrip in this class that Strand first visited the 291 art gallery – operated by Stieglitz and Edward Steichen – where exhibitions of work by forward-thinking modernist photographers and painters would move Strand to take his photographic hobby more seriously. Other films he was involved with were the documentary The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936) and the pro-union anti-fascist Native Land (1942). Paul Strand (October 16 1890 – March 31 1976) was an American photographer and filmmaker who along with fellow modernist photographers like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston helped establish photography as an art form in the 20th century.

His diverse body of work spanning six decades covers numerous genres and subjects throughout the Americas Europe and Africa.