Alfred Stieglitz
[Photographer and curator, b. 1864, Hoboken, New Jersey, d. 1946, New York.]

 I’ll try portraits of eggs & see whether I can differentiate between a rotten egg & a fresh one—so that as you look at the pictures you’ll get the psychology of that particular (or not particular) egg. —That will be a test of my powers. 
 If you decide that you would rather that art stay dead, then go out with your Kodak and produce some faithful imitations. Good machine work is always preferable to indifferent hand-made products. 
 The arts equally have distinct departments, and unless photography has its own possibilities of expression, separate from those of the other arts, it is merely a process, not an art; but granted that it is an art, reliance should be placed unreservedly upon those possibilities, that they may be made to yield the fullest results. (1901) 
 Photography is not an art. Neither is painting nor sculpture, literature nor music. They are only different media for the individual to express his aesthetic feelings; the tools he uses in his creative work. (1922) 
 It is not art in the professionalized sense about which I care, but that which is created sacredly, as a result of a deep inner experience, with all of oneself, and that becomes “art” in time. 
 I do not object to retouching, dodging, or accentuation as long as they do not interfere with the natural qualities of photographic technique. 
 I was far less interested in the pictures than in going into darkrooms. I wanted to know what went on in those mysterious places. (On his first visit to a darkroom at age eight.) 
 It’s a devilishly difficult thing for even one as free as myself to get away from the stupid “likeness” habit—it is ever getting in the way—at first. 
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