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Stranger Passing
The successful photographer shares his idiosyncratic vision of life in America by combining his evocative images with the musings of two great writers.
144 pages, Hardcover
First published September 10, 2001
50 people want to read
About the author
Joel Sternfeld
27 books11 followersJoel Sternfeld is an artist-photographer whose work is concerned with utopic and dystopic possibilities of the American experience.
Ever since the publication of his landmark study American Prospects in 1987, his work has maintained conceptual and political aspects, while also being steeped in history, art history, landscape theory and attention to seasonal passage. It is a melancholic, spectacular, funny and profound portrait of America. The curator Kevin Moore has claimed that the work embodies the “synthetic culmination of so many photographic styles of the 1970s, incorporating the humor and social perspicacity of street photography with the detached restraint of New Topographics photographs and the pronounced formalism of works by so many late-decade colorists” (Kevin Moore, Starburst: Color Photography in America 1970-1980).
On This Site (1996) examines violence in America while simultaneously raising significant epistemological questions about photographs as objects of knowledge.
Sweet Earth: Experimental Utopias in America (2006) “can be seen as a generous respite from the traumatic history in On This Site... It is a survey of American human socialization, alternative ways of living, of hopeful being” (Elin O’Hara Slavik, 2018).
All his subsequent work has sought to expand the narrative possibilities of still photography primarily through an authored text. All of his books and bodies of work converse with each other and may be read as a collective whole.
His work represents a melding of time and place that serves to elucidate, honor, and warn. The images hold a certain urgency, as their histories survive solely through their photographic representation— they are an archive for the future.
Sternfeld is the recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships and spent a year in Italy on a Rome Prize. He teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, where he holds the Noble Foundation Chair in Art and Cultural History.
Ever since the publication of his landmark study American Prospects in 1987, his work has maintained conceptual and political aspects, while also being steeped in history, art history, landscape theory and attention to seasonal passage. It is a melancholic, spectacular, funny and profound portrait of America. The curator Kevin Moore has claimed that the work embodies the “synthetic culmination of so many photographic styles of the 1970s, incorporating the humor and social perspicacity of street photography with the detached restraint of New Topographics photographs and the pronounced formalism of works by so many late-decade colorists” (Kevin Moore, Starburst: Color Photography in America 1970-1980).
On This Site (1996) examines violence in America while simultaneously raising significant epistemological questions about photographs as objects of knowledge.
Sweet Earth: Experimental Utopias in America (2006) “can be seen as a generous respite from the traumatic history in On This Site... It is a survey of American human socialization, alternative ways of living, of hopeful being” (Elin O’Hara Slavik, 2018).
All his subsequent work has sought to expand the narrative possibilities of still photography primarily through an authored text. All of his books and bodies of work converse with each other and may be read as a collective whole.
His work represents a melding of time and place that serves to elucidate, honor, and warn. The images hold a certain urgency, as their histories survive solely through their photographic representation— they are an archive for the future.
Sternfeld is the recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships and spent a year in Italy on a Rome Prize. He teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, where he holds the Noble Foundation Chair in Art and Cultural History.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 24, 2017
Another wonderful collection by Joel Sternberg, later in time than the other 2 I've been looking at.
These are all posed --also interesting, but maybe less so than the other photo books.
I'm adding his books to Goodreads today, but will probably keep around to look at more before returning to the library.
These are all posed --also interesting, but maybe less so than the other photo books.
I'm adding his books to Goodreads today, but will probably keep around to look at more before returning to the library.
December 31, 2015
Ritratti di sconosciuti realizzati per le strade degli USA principalmente negli anni '90.
Le immagini sono di una bellezza, una ricchezza di dettagli e un controllo della composizione stupefacenti, tanto da renderle spesso fredde nella loro perfezione. Ma oltre alle qualità di forme, colori e riferimenti pittorici mentre le si guarda non è possibile evitare di pensare ad altro: i tratti di un'America fiera e individualista intanto, e poi le differenze che separano queste persone, oppure le similitudini che le avvicinano tutte in quanto esseri umani.
Ed è difficile non farsi trapassare dallo sguardo dell'avvocato con i vestiti da portare in lavanderia, della donna che si toglie i pattini per andare a un incontro di lavoro, di una contadina in pausa o dallo sguardo ammiccante di una turista a un caffè di New York.
Le immagini sono di una bellezza, una ricchezza di dettagli e un controllo della composizione stupefacenti, tanto da renderle spesso fredde nella loro perfezione. Ma oltre alle qualità di forme, colori e riferimenti pittorici mentre le si guarda non è possibile evitare di pensare ad altro: i tratti di un'America fiera e individualista intanto, e poi le differenze che separano queste persone, oppure le similitudini che le avvicinano tutte in quanto esseri umani.
Ed è difficile non farsi trapassare dallo sguardo dell'avvocato con i vestiti da portare in lavanderia, della donna che si toglie i pattini per andare a un incontro di lavoro, di una contadina in pausa o dallo sguardo ammiccante di una turista a un caffè di New York.
June 26, 2020
My wife and I were in San Francisco for a few days, and we spent a half-day in the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). One of the exhibits was a sampling of Joel Sternfeld's photos from his Stranger Passing collection. I was so taken by them that I ordered a copy of Stranger Passing before I returned home. The entire collection grabbed my attention as much as the few I had seen at MOMA. I found myself imagining the lives of the individuals in the collection, their lives leading up to the photo being taken and their lives since the photo. Were their true stories more or less intriguing than the possibilities I found myself considering?
October 21, 2013
Sternfeld's portraits are somewhat unnerving, most of the time. They are intriguing though, and as a photographer, I find myself trying to imagine how these were taken. What were the circumstances of "the ask" and how long did Sternfeld spend with the subjects. Did he ask them to pose in a certain way? These will require revisiting.
January 25, 2014
Most of the portraits didn't do much for me, even after repeat viewings. I realize Sternfeld was making an effort to document the ordinary, but much was too ordinary. The images hit their stride perhaps three quarters through, and there are some winning shots. Perhaps a few I'd consider excellent, but it's just not enough.
February 24, 2014
Random-seeming portraits of people around the country, doing whatever it is they were doing: shopping, sitting, buying gas, nursing a child. The individual photos didn't make an impression on me, but collectively it's a portrait of America. All the subjects retain a certain dignity, even the shopping cart wrangler.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews