Girl and Child, Toluca Possibly 1933 - 1967

Paul Strand made this photograph, Girl and Child, Toluca, using light and shadow, time and place. Looking at it, I imagine Strand with his camera in Toluca. It's like he's painting with light, isn't it? I sympathize with Strand, thinking about how he found the right angle, the perfect moment when the light hit just so to capture these figures against the backdrop of a weathered wall. There's a certain texture there – the rough stone, the soft fabric, the smooth skin. They’re all connected by light. I keep thinking about how it relates to other photographers, artists, and painters who use light in their work. Strand is in a big conversation with others, across time. That light and time made a kind of embodied expression here, like marks on a canvas. It's like the photograph contains something solid and something ambiguous.