Abstract
Alfred Stieglitz's series of photographs of clouds entitled Equivalents has been understood from two contrasting perspectives: "straight photography" and symbolism. This essay discusses an aspect of the Equivalents which has been neglected in these two dominant frames of reference. When Stieglitz began to make the Equivalents in the mid-1920s, the painters around him, such as Georgia O'Keeffe and Stanton Macdonald-Wright, were primarily concerned with how to represent the American landscape. This concern urged them to abandon pure abstraction and to depict landscapes that were considered to be characteristically American. Although the Equivalents capture only clouds in the sky, each photograph was shot at Lake George in upstate New York. When he exhibited them, Stieglitz carefully arranged the captions and installations so that a viewer could realize this fact. As Lake George was another place regarded to embody the beauty and spirit of America, the Equivalents were not unrelated to the shared interest of the painters of the Stieglitz circle. In pursuing this concern, Stieglitz utilized an intrinsic characteristic of the photographic medium, namely its inseparable connection to a specific place and viewpoint.
