After a more famous Wall Street, originally uploaded by Matt Niebuhr.

The photograph above is of Custom Stamping and Manufacturing – owned and operated by the Stoudt family for over 45 years.

In light of the rather dramatic actions of the past few weeks with regard to America’s credit market melt down – I’d like to post this photograph. I made this photograph In the context of knowing about a very famous Strand photo of Wall Street 1915.

To compare the formal qualities are fairly obvious, what matters to me is the symbolism. It seems to be that these are the places we should hold in high esteem. These are the places where things are still made, here things are transformed from intangible ideas to tangible elements.

It’s easy to see – and Strand shows us quite plainly it seems to me in his photograph – the smallness of the individual against a looming, shadowy and opaque  “American” icon – namely Wall Street. Some 90+ years later and we find ourselves yet again faced with trying to understand what looms behind the window of Wall street. It’s time to pull back the curtains and shed some light on the subject.