That was one of his areas of exploration. He called it "Things for what else they are". I presume he meant that some shapes and forms resemble others, although from a completely different context.
We see this fairly often when people make "abstract" photos (for example, Aaron Siskind) where a fragment of a wall might resemble a face or a Chinese character. Some of Weston's peppers and other vegetables look like human limbs... it's a classic. Steigliz's clouds fall into the same category rather often: they tend to evoke something "more than" the literal subject.
Some people like this approach more than others, but it's a way to add one or more "layers" of content to a photo. Minor White was a mystic, and one of the core propositions of mysticism is that things are not as they seem... nor are they otherwise
Much of his work evokes the dream state as much as the waking state.
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