tom andrew's blog

Joel Sternfeld - McLean, Virginia. Dec 1978

Sternfeld travelled across America capturing images of the surreal and seemingly impossible. This image is part of his famous series ‘ American Prospects’. Sternfeld limited himself to two images per day during his trip so he had to choose his moment very carefully, which resulted in some fantastic images.

I am always amazed every time I see this image as I see it as technical and artistic perfection. The colour is perfectly the balanced, the subject matter is interesting and the narrative of the image draws everyone in. When I present this image to my class’s I always have to insist that this image is not constructed..It’s real… A fireman is actually buying pumpkins as a house burns down..