Grace Walker VCU Senior Port: Joel Sternfeld

Born 1944 in New York City, Sternfeld graduated from Dartmouth College in 1965 with a BA in Art. After studying the color theory of Johannes Itten and Josef Albers, he began making color photographs in the 1970s. Starting out with small and medium format cameras, he eventually moved on to shoot large format, giving his work the crisp details that it is known for. In 1987 Sternfeld released his American Prospects series, which “combined . . . an insightful and ironic view of his subjects” (The Getty Museum). In 1996 Sternfeld began to travel and document tragic events in American history, calling the series: On This Site: Landscapes in Memoriam. Applying his careful use of color, Sternfeld photographed the site where Martin Luther King was murdered, and the place where Rodney King was beaten. In 2001 with his Stranger Passing series, Sternfeld switched from landscapes to full length portraits, recording the peole he met as he traveled across America. “Each picture tells a story via the person’s physical appearance and the rich details of their surroundings” (The Getty Musuem). Sternfeld’s most recent series done in 2006, Earth: Esperimental Utopias in America “explores the sites of past and present idealized communities” (The Getty Museum). Currently, Sternfeld teaches photography at Sarah Lawrence College.