This new, fast, realistic representation of the world—the photograph—must, by virtue of its potential, be occupied with showing us the world from all angles, developing in us a capacity to see from all sides. When I first took up photography, giving up painting, I did not then realise the heavy hand that painting had laid on photography. You understand, then, that the most interesting points of view for contemporary photography are looking down from high up, up from low down, anything but straight 'from the navel' ? The contemporary city with its many storeyed houses, specially constructed factories and mills, windows of two or three storeys, the tramways, the motor car, ubiquitous illuminated signs, ocean liners, aeroplanes, all of this... has altered willy-nilly, albeit not by a great deal, the accustomed psychology of visual perception. It would seem that only the camera is in a position to reflect life today.

Alexander Rodchenko writing in Novy Lef, 1928, No. 9.

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