Steiglitz' Clouds

[John Kasaian]

An interesting essay by a master
http://www.retronaut.co/2010/07/alfred-steiglitzs-clouds/

[Michael Graves]

I found the comment about Bloch interesting. I'm a fan of Bloch's music as well. I don't know of any piece he wrote called Clouds, so perhaps that never materialized, or I simply haven't found it yet. But I'll be looking. The interesting thing about Bloch, is that had he not been so renowned as a composer, he probably would have joined Steiglitz in the ranks of great photographers of that era. He did some pretty amazing work of his own.

[Brian Ellis]

I admire Steiglitz as a photographer and for his promotion of photography as an art form through his galleries, Camera Work, etc. But his writing often contains what some would call hyperbole and others would call complete fiction. This famous account of Bloch's supposed statements upon seeing the cloud photographs falls in one of those categories IMHO (and the opinion of others). Bloch was a fine photographer as well as a composer. He may very well have seen music in these photographs and said something about it. But the idea that he said verbatim what Steiglitz hoped he would say and claims he said seems highly improbable to put it mildly.

For the longer essay (from which this apparently was excerpted), see http://www.jnevins.com/steiglitzclouds.htm

[Drew Wiley]

I got the opportunity once to view what S. considered his master set of his Lk George etc
cloud "equivalents". Dense, dark moody, intense - really compelling for something so common and ordinary. Lots of Gestalt. I think the guy was basically a selfish jerk, but he
sure could do things with a miniumum of gear. I used to admire his portrait work quite a bit
but now it seems a bit stiff to me - not really a criticism, understanding how things had to
be posed a bit given the slow ASA he had to work with. Minor white took that equivalent
doctrine and put it on steroids - a total kook who should have kept his mouth shut and just
let us admire his remarkable prints.

[Ken Lee]

http://www.kenleegallery.com/images/forum/SteiglitzCloud.jpg
Equivalent
Alfred Steiglitz, 1926

I've had the good fortune of seeing several of his Equivalents in person.

It can be helpful to read as little as possible about photographers - or what they have written - and simply look at their photographs instead.

[Darin Boville]

I went so far as to do a remake of Stiegltiz's cloud photos--you can see a few at my site, http://www.darinboville.com/ (sadly in low-res pdf form, but you'll get the idea).

--Darin

[jp]

I'm a huge fan of his equivalents photos as well. I consider it more creative and noteworthy than his useful promotion of photography for which he is often known.

I've been known to point a B&W film camera upwards for the same ever-changing subject. Point a color (even digital) upwards, and it's a mostly unworthy documentation of a beautiful and colorful sky. It's an effective and sometimes beautiful exercise in abstraction to capture the same scene in B&W with gray/silver 2-d output in mind. I'd call it a pure example of previsualization, except that word wasn't in use at that time.

[Bill_1856]

Paul Strand's comment was that they're not equivalent to anything -- they're just ordinary pictures of clouds.

[Bill Burk]

It's a memorable story and illustrates "Equivalents" clearly. I don't have any trouble believing that a composer would see a series of nature photos and equate it to music. Another encouraging lesson is that the subject is not what makes the photographs, it is the photographer.

[Brian Ellis]

. . . I don't have any trouble believing that a composer would see a series of nature photos and equate it to music. . . .

I don't either. But that's not what Steiglitz claims Bloch said or did.

[Bill Burk]

I don't either. But that's not what Steiglitz claims Bloch said or did.

Poetic! Poetic License! Man, that is Poetic License!

[Bill Burk]

I don't have any trouble believing that a composer would see a series of nature photos and equate it to music.

On what Steiglitz claimed... In all probability Bloch said something similar to what Steiglitz had in mind (but not literally verbatim).

But Steiglitz claimed more, verbatim he said. The story packs punch and perks up your ears.

I went into the sierra with the story in mind, I aimed the camera at the sky more than once. And when I did, the words "music, man that is music" went through my mind.

Suppose Steiglitz had written a tame account of Bloch's reaction.

It would have never entered my mind.

[Jim Jones]

Edward Weston said it better, "Whenever I can feel a Bach fugue in my work I know I have arrived.” Perhaps Bloch is more appropriate for Steiglitz, though.

[paulr]

But his writing often contains what some would call hyperbole and others would call complete fiction. This famous account of Bloch's supposed statements upon seeing the cloud photographs falls in one of those categories IMHO (and the opinion of others).

Szarkowski writes a lot about of this tendency, and specifically about the Equivalents, in his essay in the expedition catalog for Alfred Stieglitz at Lake George. He takes a historical look at Stieglitz's claims on why he took those photographs and what they were about ... there are seven or eight wildly diferent ones, and most are incompatible with each other.

"Music! Man, that is music!" became a kind of stock punch line for my friends and me many years back.

[Heroique]

Steiglitz’ Clouds


…Steiglitz…


…Steiglitz…Steiglitz…


…Steiglitz…


…Stiegltiz’s…


…Steiglitz…


…Steiglitz…Steiglitz…Steiglitz…Steiglitz…


...Steiglitz...


John, Michael, Brian, Ken, Darin, Bill, and Jim – Please go to the blackboard and write “I will spell Stieglitz correctly in the future.” 100 times. Bill, that’s 200 times for you.

Paul, no homework for you tonight. :)

[paulr]

Paul Strand's comment was that they're not equivalent to anything -- they're just ordinary pictures of clouds.

That's hilarious. Do you remember where you saw that?

[Bill Burk]

Stieglitz 200 times - I can't beleive I did that.

Here's an experiment...

paulr,

I often envision what you would say in reaction to seeing one of my prints.

I just sent Brian Ellis a pm with my prediction of what you will say when you see this.

What's your reaction? After paulr gives it, Brian - you can share the pm...

http://www.beefalobill.com/images/_MG_7024crop.jpg

Cloud with Aspens
Bill Burk, 2008

[Heroique]

I predict Paul will say that the style & intended message were exhausted long ago by the Masters and are no longer credible in our post-post-modernist world.

[Darin Boville]

What Happened to Ken Lee's post--I was responding to it and the browser got all weird so I came back in and it is gone! Did *I* do that?

Anyway, Ken was joking that copying old masters was cool. Here's one of mine (not LF but certainly not handheld):

74997

[Brian Ellis]

John, Michael, Brian, Ken, Darin, Bill, and Jim – Please go to the blackboard and write “I will spell Stieglitz correctly in the future.” 100 times. Bill, that’s 200 times for you.

Paul, no homework for you tonight. :)

Thanks. From now on I'll try to remember "i before e in Stieglitz photography."

[paulr]

What's your reaction?


Music! Music! Man, that is music!

[Ken Lee]

What Happened to Ken Lee's post--I was responding to it and the browser got all weird so I came back in and it is gone! Did *I* do that?

Anyway, Ken was joking that copying old masters was cool. Here's one of mine (not LF but certainly not handheld):

74997

Sorry, I removed my post because it struck me as more sarcastic than amusing.

[Bill Burk]

Sorry, I removed my post because it struck me as more sarcastic than amusing.

Sarcastic is good

[Bill Burk]

"Music! Man, that is music!" became a kind of stock punch line for my friends and me many years back.

Touché!

[Brian Ellis]

Music! Music! Man, that is music!

That's exactly what Bill hoped you'd say and you said it, verbatim.

[Bill_1856]

That's hilarious. Do you remember where you saw that?


No. Maybe quoted by one of the Newhalls, but i don't remember where i read it.

[Ken Lee]

Here's one of mine (not LF but certainly not handheld):

74997

Very mysterious ! Perhaps a bit more like Minor White than "mainstream" Stieglitz.

Is that stellar clouds, through a telescope ? If so, then it's even more cosmic than Minor, although Minor could get pretty mysterious :)


http://www.kenleegallery.com/images/forum/MinorWhitePtLobos.jpg
Point Lobos, California
Minor White, 1951

[Darin Boville]

Very mysterious ! Perhaps a bit more like Minor White than "mainstream" Stieglitz.

Is that stellar clouds, through a telescope ? If so, then it's even more cosmic than Minor, although Minor could get pretty mysterious :)


http://www.kenleegallery.com/images/forum/MinorWhitePtLobos.jpg
Point Lobos, California
Minor White, 1951

From an orbiting space telescope--with all the stars removed!

--Darin

[Bill Burk]

As if we didn't start with infinity... Microscopes and Telescopes add to the already infinite choices of subject matter... Great concept Darin!

[Drew Wiley]

Looks more like a mtn range with stripes of glaciers. I love how Minor White's own
"equivalents" were almost metaphors for something else. Or maybe that's just my own
version of a Freudian slip for getting itchy to get back to the mtns soon!

[Ken Lee]

Looks more like a mtn range with stripes of glaciers. I love how Minor White's own
"equivalents" were almost metaphors for something else. Or maybe that's just my own
version of a Freudian slip for getting itchy to get back to the mtns soon!

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 (http://www.kenleegallery.com/html/like/index.html#aaronsiskind2)) 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 :cool:

Much of his work evokes the dream state as much as the waking state.

[Brian C. Miller]

Looks more like a mtn range with stripes of glaciers. I love how Minor White's own
"equivalents" were almost metaphors for something else. Or maybe that's just my own version of a Freudian slip for getting itchy to get back to the mtns soon!

Are you referring to the, "Point Lobos, California, Minor White, 1951," image? The seagull sh*t on the rocks with the ocean in the background?

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah ... maybe the real Pt Lobos print doesn't look like that, but on my office monitor it
sure does. My first ten yrs of printmaking had a lot of metaphysical deliberately misunderstood images, often with a complex focal plane, though I never ever thought of
them as abstract. "Abstract" in photog too often just becomes some pattern study mimicking painting, and not photog itself does best. Minor White was a bit heavy in his
doctrine of both equivalents and the zone system. Reminded me of the crazy professor of
"Back to the Future", or the ghost of Stiegliz come back merely to haunt us ... but I really
do like his prints.

[Greg Miller]

Are you referring to the, "Point Lobos, California, Minor White, 1951," image? The seagull sh*t on the rocks with the ocean in the background?

That isn't whale sperm on the rocks???

[Brian C. Miller]

That isn't whale sperm on the rocks???

No. Whales that get that close have this happen to them:
1970, Oregon Department of Transportation whale removal (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn7D-pikXNU), and here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_whale), and here (http://www.snopes.com/critters/disposal/whale.asp), and here (http://theexplodingwhale.com/evidence/the-video/), and here (http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/zoology/mammals/whale-death.htm), etc.