Camera Notes

He envisioned the new organization as the American beacon of fine art photography, and to help promote his vision he proposed expanding the former newsletter of the club into a full-fledged journal with himself as editor.

"[4] 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.

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.

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.

Volumes 1-4 displayed a green Art Nouveau cover with a design attributed to Thomas A. Sindelar, a student of Alphonse Mucha.

As Stieglitz biographer Katherine Hoffman points out, "Each issue of Camera Notes was an art object itself, with its finely printed photogravures, well-designed layout and range of articles and text.