eBook Alfred Stieglitz: Camera Work ePub

Camera Work was the most important publication in the early development of modern photography. Camera Work was the first primarily pictoral periodical.
Edited by the indefatigable Alfred Steiglitz, the publication was the voice of the important Photo-Secession, but operated independently of it. Through Camera Work, early aficionados of great photography were able to discover the works of the first geniuses in this field. Later the publication also introduced Americans to the works of Marin, Matisse, Picasso, and Cezanne.
Please realize that I am rating this book for its value as a historical reference. This is not a coffee table book, and many of the images will not attract the casual observer. If you are looking for a book of beautiful and wonderfully reproduced photographs, this is not your book.
Before going further, please also realize that this book contains many tasteful nudes and would be "R" rated as a motion picture.
The book's strength is that it contains all of the illustrations (and even some of the advertisements) from the entire 50 issues of Camera Work. For most people, this book is the only way you can observe that work. Although many people have heard about Stieglitz's work in advocating photography, few have seen what an issue of Camera Work looked like. You will also benefit from seeing the essays that Stieglitz wrote about the photographers. These were done in New Yorker style and are very accessible variations on the essays often found in catalogues for exhibitions. In fact, Camera Work increasingly doubled as a summary of exhibitions at 291, Stieglitz's gallery.
The book comes with a fine essay (in English, German, and French) that explains many valuable details about Camera Work.
Stieglitz was very dedicated to quality and sought out the best reproduction processes for the images involved. Unfortunately, these reproductions as done for this volume will fall short of the expectations of most viewers. The pages are quite small, making many images appear differently than they were probably intended.
Stieglitz liked photography that included a soft focus or the diffusion of light that fog and rain can provide. In many cases, these effects are enhanced by other techniques to make the resulting images more abstract. In this book's format, these images often don't look their best. In particular, it seemed to me that many of the images were overinked in this printing, which would create more obscurity than was intended by the artist.
Here are my favorite photographic images from the book:
Bartholome, 1903, Edward Steichen
Letitia Felix, 1903, Clarence White
Ely Cathedral, 1903, Frederick Evans
Storm Light, 1904, Will Cadby
Illustration to "Eben Holden," 1905, Clarence White
Katherine, 1905, Alfred Stieglitz
Experiment in Three-color Photography, 1906, Edward Steichen
Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, 1907, Sarah Sears
The Rudder, 1908, Alvin Coburn
Spider-webs, 1908, Alvin Coburn
Still Life [glass bowl with floating flowers], 1908, Baron A. de Meyer
Portrait Group, 1912, H. Mortimer Lamb
The Balloon Man, 1912, Baron A. de Meyer
Ellen Terry, 1913, Julia Margaret Cameron
Dryads, 1913, Annie Brigman
New York, 1916, Paul Strand
Photograph [shadows on geometric objects], 1917, Paul Strand
After you finish enjoying this remarkable collection, I suggest that you think about how the styles represented here have affected modern photographic methods and our concepts of photography. In a sense, these images are the dinosaur bones of modern photography.
See the truth, the beauty, and the pain!

a great reference for myself as a photographer and for my students. Wonderful examples of turn of century innovative photographic techniques and comments by the author.

There is a newer version available on Amazon. Just do a search. The reproductions are 1000x better. The only thing I dislike is that all the articles in Camera Work are not included.