Famous Photographers - Second in a Series - Alfred Stieglitz
Famous Photographers - Second in a Series - Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was known for the New York art galleries that he ran in the early part of the 20th century, where he introduced many avant-garde European artists to the U.S. He was married to painter Georgia O'Keeffe . (Wikipedia)
This is a portrait of Alfred Stieglitz as a younger man, followed by 25 of his photographs that I have chosen from his collection. I have only commented on a few. Although many of these vintage photos are faded, and I could have increased the contrast and sharpened them, it would be wrong to toy with masterpieces as they may well have been faded originally.
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3. 5th Avenue, NYC, in winter
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5. The Terminal Building
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8. He seemed to take a lot of photos during or just after rainy weather.
9. His wife, the painter Georgia O'Keeffe
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11. New York, Old and New.
12. Hands (of his wife, Georgia O'Keeffe)
13. The Mauritania (the original ship launched in 1906, not the one launched in 1938)
14. The Steerage. This is the photo that kicked off his career as a great photographer. He was travelling to Europe in First Class on the ship, happened to look down and saw the travellers in 4th Class (known as steerage). He ran to his cabin and got his big plate camera, had only one plate left, and got back in time to get this photo.
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18. He took many trips to Europe. I need not say this was taken in Venice.
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23. Poplar Trees. I have great memories of Poplar trees. They were in front of my grandmother's cottage, and in the summer when a storm was starting to blow, the leaves would rustle, and turn over to show a shiny side.
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25. Rainbow at Lake George. It's a shame this could not be in colour, but it predated colour photography.
The next series will be the photography of Margaret Bourke-White, one of LIFE magazine's great photographers.
Great photo essay Buzz.
I love looking at vintage photographs.
Thank you for sharing.
I'll be posting many of them, even ones that by editing I create myself. LOL
Enjoyed. Thank you.
These are great, Buzz! Thank you for these!
As with Buzz's earlier such photo essay, when I see such wonderful old photos, I have a dual reaction …
• Restore them to their original quality, and,
• Appreciate their age and the level of rustic charm they possess and evoke
As for restoring these iconic photos, you said yourself that doing so could destroy their original purpose. On the other hand, being able to restore them to what was their original quality DOES have a purpose, but which ones are actually faded and which were originally created to be faded?
I hate to say it but he's right. The age of them dictates they need to be preserved.
Thanks for posting, I loved them
And on the other hand one might appreciate a photo that is vintage, faded and a little worn, like THIS one:
WRONG!!!!
I took this photo last Spring .
Restorations are done for one of two reasons ... preservation and/or, literally returning a work back to what it looked like originally.
In the digital age, either can be accomplished without physically touching the original other than to scan it, create its digitized counter part and print the restored version.
When subject matter is not representative of a specific period in time, restoration to new or like-new is qualitative.
But when a subject is as much about "when" as it is about "who" or "what" ... a "need" for restoration ... left as that need, in my opinion, adds character and dignity to the original.
Fortunately, in the digital age, it can be had both ways.