Word: stieglitz
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...Stieglitz had gone to Berlin to study engineering, but one day day he noticed a camera in a store window. He went inside and bought it. From that time, the camera "fascinated me, first as a passion, then as an obsession," Stieglitz wrote later. "The camera was waiting for me by predestination and I took to it as a musician takes to a piano or a painter to canvas. I found I was master of the elements, that I could work miracles...
This fascination with the camera's potential is evident in all Stieglitz's early prints. In "Sun Rays--Paula--Berlin" (1899), he was seized with the camera's ability to capture the texture of wallpaper and the bands of light broken by a venetian blind. In his enthusiasm, the young Stieglitz photographed at night and in the rain--things he had been told were impossible...
From 1902 to 1917, Stieglitz spent more time fighting for photography as art than actually photographing. "Every Tom, Dick, and Harry could, without trouble, learn to get something or other in a sensitive plate, and this is what the public wanted--no work and lots of fun," he complained. He formed a group of artistic photographers aptly named "Photo-Secession," and set out to win for photography the recognition he desired. Steiglitz demanded that members be not only outstanding artists but also faithful adherents to his ideological crusade. His weapon was his quarterly magazine, Camera Work, over which he presided...
...Stieglitz met the painter Georgia O'Keeffe, whom he married the next year. His portraits of her, 15 of which are exhibited at the Fine Arts, are nothing short of brilliant. His portraits of other people, by comparison, are disappointing. The reason for this disparity is simple: for Stieglitz, the photographic protrait is a part of possessing someone. It begins at birth, continues throughout life and death, and then begins again with the subject's child. Everything is photographed--hands, feet, torsos, moods, emotions. Stieglitz came close to such photographic possession only with his wife...
...Stieglitz became much more abstract in his later years. Told by some friends that he owed the quality of his pictures as much to his subjects as to himself and wanting to test the extent of his creative ability, Stieglitz turned to photographing clouds. "I wanted to photograph clouds to find out what I had learned in 40 years about photography. Through clouds to put down my philosophy of life--to show that my photographs were not due to subject matter--nor special privileges, clouds were there for everyone--no tax on them yet--free." He called these pictures "Equivalents...