The Sasse: Where love stories develop
between art and viewer

home | about | collection | giving | museum catalogs | exhibits | inspired

Observations in B&W

There is a quietness to Alfred Haymond's photographs, a deliberate stillness that invites the eye to linger where it might otherwise rush past. Working entirely in black and white, Haymond has built a body of work rooted in what he calls "observational photography": the art of noticing the unremarkable, honoring the overlooked, and finding within the everyday a reason to pause.

Originally from Los Angeles and self-taught, Haymond has developed his vision entirely on his own terms, guided not by formal training but by a lifelong instinct for looking closely at the world around him. That instinct has produced a body of work of quiet authority. Vintage architecture, rural landscapes, intimate portraits, street corners, and fleeting fragments of Americana are his subjects, rendered in silver tones that feel simultaneously immediate and timeless.

For Haymond, the choice of black and white is not merely aesthetic. It is, he says, "quaint, therapeutic and very nostalgic," a medium that strips away distraction and returns the viewer to something essential. Color, with all its immediacy, can tell you what something looks like. Black and white asks you to consider what something means.

In 2012, a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis became an unexpected catalyst. Rather than allow his photographs to remain in boxes in a garage, Haymond made the decision to bring them into the world. "I had received some life-altering news at the time," he reflects, "and figured I should do something meaningful with my photographs rather than let them just sit."

That decision, and the courage behind it, is part of what gives this work its particular resonance. These are not simply observations. They are acts of intention, of generosity, of a photographer determined to share what he sees with anyone willing to look.