Rock, Georgetown, Maine 1927

Paul Strand made this photograph, "Rock, Georgetown, Maine," at some point in his career, using what looks like a pretty straight-forward photographic process. Look at the surface, it’s all about texture, right? You can almost feel the graininess of the rock. It's not smoothed over or prettified. You get the feeling that Strand wasn't trying to hide anything. He’s letting the material, the rock itself, do the talking. The light catches every little bump and groove. The swirling lines in the stone remind me of brushstrokes, which is kind of funny when you think about it. Here's a photo mimicking the gestures of painting. See that dark crevice there? It’s not just a shadow. It's like a pause, a moment of quiet in all that visual noise. Strand was part of a whole movement of photographers like Alfred Stieglitz who were thinking hard about how photography could be just as expressive and powerful as painting. It’s all one big conversation, isn't it?