During the 1970s, Lee Friedlander developed a language that was free and his own, establishing the visual strategies that he would keep returning to. At that time North American social landscape photography was a genre onto its own, established thanks to masters such as Robert Frank. When taking photographs of landscapes during his trips through the country, Friedlander embraced Frank’s irony, as well as the documentary weight of Walker Evans’ photographs. The so-called genre of social landscape, to which his work belongs, deals with the effects of human action on the landscape, both rural and urban.

Friedlander explored North American roads with a 35 mm Leica camera making innovative photographs thanks to his audacious and random framing and cropping. In this photograph, taken in Butte (Montana) in 1970, the electric lines, the pavement, and the half built sidewalks are presented as the main axes of the composition. A lamp post divides the photograph in two—a device the photographer often uses—and supports a small sign that announces the street’s name:  Lee Av. The sign reveals the motive behind Friedlander’s attraction to this place and the humor hidden inside many of his images. The harmony of the vertical and horizontal lines creates a desolate and banal landscape that the photographer manages to make his own.