EDWARD STEICHEN - photographer

In 1954 Edward Steichen organised an exhibition called 'The Family of Man'. He invited professional & amateur photographers to participate. In a book called 'Picturing an Exhibition', the author Eric Sandeen talks about this man & his exhibition. The Family of Man exhibition was a huge collection of photographs taken all around the world. Steichen then photographed the exhibition itself and that became a documentation in itself. What caught my eye when reading this book were several quotes made by Steichen or about him which I list below:

'Steichen made a distinction between a positive and a negative approach to delivering a message through photographs.'

'The Family of Man made a positive approach towards human attributes: "instead of making pretty pictures or technically perfect pictures, we are going to get out of life"'.

'The collection was built of a rhetoric of unity, the only structure powerful enough to oppose the perils of the modern period: the ever-present elements of bigotry, and the snarl of intolerance, the hate and fear that is generated all over the world".'

"From day to day we are brought face to face with the differences in life. Of course, those differences are there. They are differences of race; they are differences of of creed; they are differences of nation. But you measure up those differences with the things that we are alike in. That must be our prevailing theme...." then he goes on..."But there is also love. That is the same the world over."...

He calls his style 'very straight forward semi-photojournalistic documentation'.

Reference for photos: http://www.luxembourg.co.uk/clervaux.html