Photographic Quote of the Week: Paul Strand

Cartier-Bresson has said that photography seizes a "decisive moment." That's true except that it shouldn't be taken too narrowly...does my picture of a cobweb in the rain represent a decisive moment? The exposure time was probably three or four minutes. That's a pretty long moment. I would say the decisive moment in that case was the moment in which I saw this thing and decided I wanted to photograph it. - Paul Strand, Sixty Years of Photographs by Paul Strand, Calvin Tomkins , ISBN: 0900406828 , Page: 35-36

“Cobweb in Rain, Georgetown, Maine,” 1927 (negative); 1927 (print). Paul Strand, American, 1890 – 1976. Gelatin silver print, image: 9 11/16″ x 7 13/16″ (24.6 x 19.8 cm). Sheet: 9 15/16″ x 8 1/16″ (25.3 x 20.4 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art, 125th Anniversary Acquisition. The Paul Strand Collection, the Lynne and Harold Honickman Gift of the Julien Levy Collection, 2001. © Paul Strand Archive/Aperture Foundation.