Blind Woman, from Portfolio Three

Early in his career Strand did a series of candid street portraits with a handheld camera. The unique camera was fitted with a special prismatic lens, which allowed him to aim the camera in one direction, and take the photograph at a ninety-degree angle. This image of a street beggar in New York was taken with such a camera. Since its publication in the magazine Camera Work in 1917, Blind Woman has become an icon in American photography, and embodies the interest in social documentation of photojournalists at the time.