Equivalents (Clouds) by Alfred Steiglitz

Equivalents by Alfred Steiglitz

This is an interesting series, both to look at and also to read about. Alfred wanted to take photographs of something which proved his good photography was not due to the content of his photos. This was a series which was added too over many years between 1925-1936, and was actually very complex to shoot as it required filters which allowed the clouds to be seen in the sky. I can imagine this would be similar to the digital camera, where the exposure is changed to allow brighter or darker objects to be seen more clearly, much like me with my shadows. This series was also classified as the first abstract series. It is such a simple thing to photograph but clouds are very diverse and with no context could appear as anything. Some images such as the one directly above contains a small snippet of a tree giving some context but the rest simply appear as textures or shapes with light and shadow, I find that the top one could even be mistaken for water or a waterfall. It was described as a void of any reference points, there is nothing in the images to indicate what they are. 

Another interesting technique I picked up while reading about this series was the use of image flipping. As the images were abstract Steiglitz did not care for the orientation based on how he photographed them, I believe he possibly looked more at the composition. Sarah Greenough said that by doing this he was "destabilising your relationship with nature in order to have you think less about nature, not to deny that it's a photograph of a cloud but to think more about the feeling that the cloud formation evokes." This is a very interesting point and has something I have done for my communications paper in my architecture coarse. If you flip the image it alters the sense of reality and it is read completely differently and sometimes looks a lot better or appropriate.