Alfred Stieglitz

Alfred Stieglitz was born in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1864 to parents of German Jewish descent, Edward Stieglitz and Hedwig Warner, and the first of six children. He began his elementary education in New York. He grew up in a house across from Central Park at 14 East 60th Street in Manhattan. From a young age, Stieglitz collected the photographs he found and hung them on the walls of his room. In 1882, he left for Germany to continue his studies when his father sold his clothing business and brought his entire family back to Europe. It was there that he spent the best years of his life and where he discovered photography.

He took his first photos at the age of 19, during his engineering studies at the Berlin Polytechnic School. He is already an enlightened amateur and decides to experiment with new techniques in order to go beyond the standardized limits of this time. He even went so far as to enroll in chemistry courses to perfect his knowledge and master all aspects of the camera and the art of photography. He also learned a lot about his art while working in a local photographer's darkroom. Knowing that the camera could only be used during the day, he tried an experiment in a cellar where the only light came from an electric bulb activated by a dynamo. He did a 24 hour exposure, which gave him a perfect negative. This negative demonstrated that daylight was not always necessary. Later, Stieglitz would take the first successful shots of a rainy day, a snowstorm and in the middle of the night.