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Alfred Stieglitz And His Influence On Photography

    Alfred Stieglitz was an influential photographer who spent his
life fighting for the recognition of photography as a valid art form.
He was a pioneering photographer, editor and gallery owner who played
pivotal role in defining and shaping modernism in the United States.
(Lowe 23). He took pictures in a time when photography was considered
as only a scientific curiosity and not an art. As the controversy over
the art value of photography became widespread, Stieglitz began to
fight for the recognition of his chosen medium. This battle would last
his whole life.

    Edward Stieglitz, father of Alfred, was born in Germany in 1833.
He grew up on a farm, loved nature, and was an artist at heart. Legend
has it that, independent and strong willed, Edward Stieglitz ran away
from home at the age of sixteen because his mother insisted on upon
starching his shirt after he had begged her not to (Lowe 23). Edward
would later meet Hedwig Warner and they would have their first son,
Alfred. Alfred was the first of six born to his dad Edward and mom
Hedwig. As a child Alfred was remembered as a boy with thick black
hair, large dark eyes, pale fine skin, a delicately modeled mouth with
a strong chin (Peterson 34). In 1871 the Stieglitz family lived at 14
East 60th street in Manhattan. No buildings stood between Central Park
and the Stieglitz family home. As Stieglitz got older he started to
show interest in photography, posting every photo he could find on his
bedroom wall. It wasn't until he got older that his photography
curiosity begin to take charge of his life.

    Stieglitz formally started photography at the age of nineteen,
during his first years at the Berlin Polytechnic School.   At this time
photography was in its infancy as an art form. Alfred learned the fine
arts of photography by watching a local photographer in Berlin working
in the store's dark room. After making a few pictures of his room and...