Camera Notes - History and Context

History and Context

The first issue of Camera Notes premiered in July, 1897. Ironically, the first issue did not live up to Stieglitz’s vision, for it contained mostly articles on the business of the Camera Club and none on aesthetics or other photographers. The two photogravures in that issue, including a portrait by Stieglitz, were also unremarkable. Nonetheless, Camera Notes was immediately well-received, and in the second issue Stieglitz published a sampling of the praise that had come from other photographic magazines. Britain’s Photogram, for example, said "Camera Notes is such a fine publication that we hesitate to use the adjectives necessary to describe it." With the second issue Stieglitz hit his editorial stride, with a full range of photographs and articles that included F. Holland Day writing on "Art and the Camera" and Lee Ferguson lamenting on "Our Lack of Exhibitions". With Camera Notes Stieglitz established the pattern he would continue for the rest of his life of exerting complete editorial and aesthetic control over all aspects of the publication. Occasionally he would allow some articles to express ideas contrary to his, mostly for the sake of allowing him to rebut them, but in general his opinions dominated the visual and literary contributions to the magazine.

Stieglitz also instilled in Camera Notes his belief that photographers should be familiar with other arts, since he saw his primary mission as promoting photography as a fine art itself. He included articles on Impressionism, Symbolism, genre painting and portraiture, and commentaries on aesthetics from well-known art critics and artists like Sadakichi Hartmann and Arthur Wesley Dow.

At the same time, Stieglitz regularly took the opportunity to promote his own work, and while he was editor he published twenty-two of his own photos in the magazine, including two images twice.

For much of the first year, Stieglitz emphasized foreign photographers in the magazine as encouragement to his U.S. colleagues to develop a uniquely American school of photography. Within a short time, he was rewarded for his efforts by finding a new level of photographic aesthetics among his close colleagues. For the remainder of the publication's life, American photographers were dominated the highest quality reproductions included in Camera Notes. Of the fifty photographers whose work was included either as photogravures or as tipped-in silver prints, thirty-five were Americans.

While Stieglitz sought independence from the Camera Club in his editorial work, very few of photographers whose work he reproduced came from outside the membership of the club. The most prominent of the non-Club members who were featured were F. Holland Day and Clarence H. White. Both figure prominently in Stieglitz’s concurrent efforts to promote pictorialism through his establishment of the Photo-Secession.

Eventually, Stieglitz’s autocratic direction of the journal came under fire from the membership of the Club. In spite of the record of reproducing work mostly by Club members, some members felt Stieglitz was spending too much time and effort promoting activities outside of the Club. He also faced criticism from more progressive members who felt that much of the work Stieglitz chose fell into the same tired aesthetics that he originally campaigned against. In late 1900 a special meeting of the Club was held to address these issues, and, while he appeared open to a democratic discussion of the journal, Stieglitz became upset that his leadership and aesthetic integrity were being questioned. He eventually became disillusioned with all of the in-fighting, and in early 1901 he announced that he would step down as editor after one more year.

In May, 1902, Juan C. Abel took over as editor. Abel, who was the Club’s librarian, had assisted Stieglitz with two issues of Camera Notes and had experience working on other photographic magazines. He sought to emphasize the change in editorial direction by redesigning the magazine, putting a new cover in place along with a more sophisticated layout. He also introduced the relatively bold concept of including at least one tipped-in, original photographs in each issue. In spite his editorial changes, however, Abel did not have the aesthetic sense of Stieglitz, and the overall quality of the images included in the magazine, including the original prints, was inferior when compared to the previous five years.

When Stieglitz began independently publishing his own journal Camera Work in 1903, interest in Camera Notes quickly flagged. The photographers and critics who were at the forefront of fine art photography at the time recognized that, for all his shortcomings, Stieglitz really was the driving force in the movement.

The last issue of Camera Notes appeared in December 1903. A column under this name and written by members of the Camera Club subsequently appeared in two other magazines, but it contained only news and notes about the club itself.