Alfred Stieglitz

Alfred Stieglitz. What a photographer. He was born in 1864 and lived until 1946. Stieglitz (along with Steichen) lived through what is said to be the most rapid and radical changes ever to happen in American history. He saw the introduction of sky scrapers and steam trains and managed to photograph them all. His work is important in the fact that it shows us the transformations of the American environment at that time, as well as the society. He was also the creator of the magazine 'Camera Works' from 1902-1917, a magazine that showed Edward Steichen's work many times, along with other innovative photographers at the time. Stieglitz was also one of the founding members of the group and gallery space '291'.

The body of work that I am most interested in is Stieglitz's 'Equivalents'. This series of work is almost like a study of the ever changing sky, a documentation of the different types of clouds that Stieglitz saw everyday. In this day and age, when looking at these photographs it is easy to say that they are nothing very special or exciting. Yet when put in context to the time that they where taken in, they where very important. It was the first time that a photographer had pointed their camera at the sky and taken photographs of this kind. It is said that these photographs where an expression of Stieglitz's feelings and emotions at the moment that he was taking the photographs and that there is this whole other context to the images than just being exciting photographs of cloud formations.This is why they are so special, as they are about Stieglitz's emotional state and experience at the time the photographs where taken.

I think that Stieglitz's photographs of his wife (the bottom four-pretty sure it was his wife, but not 100%) are very beautiful and creative for the time. The Equivalents series is one that i have revisited over the past year and a bit, as lots of my photographs are of landscapes and cloud formations. I don't know what it is about clouds but I believe they are very emotive and beautiful and often over looked. There is something special about the fact that they are ever changing and are not a permanent thing that we can touch and control as human beings. I love photographing them and they are very important to my work. I have never come across the complete collection of the photographs by Stieglitz but would love to see them one day, all together.