I believe this statement to be true, especially because of Stieglitz's portrait work of his wife, Georgia O'Keeffe. He showed beautiful angles of O'Keeffe's body. My favorite photo of Georgia O'Keeffe is an up close photo of her neck. It looks so beautiful, her collar bones and the strain in her neck. The collar bones cast a haunting shadow and it makes the photo look soft, elegant and delicate. I think this is an influential photo, and does look like art, rather than just point and shot. This image, being a piece of art, paves the way for photographers and their many critics who claim that photography is not an art.
Not only did Stieglitz use angles to convey his photography, but he also used the harsh reality of going into coal mines and photographing the young child laborers, this gives photography an edge because this would be something that any other art form could not do. Sure, they can go ahead and paint a picture of a coal mine, but they wouldn't exactly be able to capture the raw emotion of the young children while working. I also like Stieglitz's photo of a blind woman, because similar to the coal mines it conveys raw human emotion. This intense photo shows a blind woman with a gouged eye. The harsh reality that people in the world are suffering not only brings an gritty art form, but also captures the world as is.
http://artblart.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/14_strand_blind_1916_72dpi.jpg
During Stieglitz's time, photography was not considered an art by most. The quest to prove these critical artists began with pictorialism. The photos were made to look similar to paintings, with soft light and out of focus images. The final product would be a mysterious but stunning twist on photography. The image below is stunning because of the light on the woman's face. The image is blurred and makes the photo look similar to a painting. Even though some artist today still look down on photography, Stieglitz paved the way to make it gain some degree of respect and appreciation.
http://venetianred.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/steichen-portrait-1903.jpg
The blind woman was done by Paul Strand. It's often mixed with AS's works because he is responsible for 'discovering' Paul Strand, and they worked together for many years. This is the problem with using a google image search for a topic, you often get a lot of stuff mixed in that unless you know the topic really well you will never know how to sort the truth out of the mix. A way to avoid this is to change your search habit-- look for .org at the end of the site, chances are they will be more reliable.
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