Cosmic joke

Today the cosmos was clearly having a joke at my expense. In honour of the 65th anniversary of the death of photographic legend Alfred Stieglitz I thought, in the absence of access to huddled masses of immigrants on an ocean-going liner, I'd take a clouds picture. Stieglitz famously took pictures of clouds in the 1920s and 1930s for his Equivalents series - said to be the first abstract photographic works of art.
So what happens - blue sky from horizon to horizon, even into the early evening, when I gave in to the irony and took this shot of our suncatcher (working hard today) and aforementioned blue sky.

[A longer Stieglitz-related entry follows, if you are interested...]
One of the pieces of work we had to produce in the first year of our HND was a short piece comparing the contribution of Stieglitz and Edward Steichen, another great photographer of the twentieth century. The idea was to produce an opinion piece - what we thought - and not just a regurgitating of information off the internet. Only c500 words, so not too big to include here, I think.

In a history of photography in the twentieth century, who had the greater influence: Stieglitz or Steichen?

Stieglitz or Steichen? It's one of those quickfire cultural-dichotomy questions, like Britney or Christina, Borg or McEnroe, Beatles or Stones? In fact, you could describe Stieglitz and Steichen as the Lennon and McCartney of their day. Two men who came together to form a hugely influential group, enjoyed years of fruitful collaboration that helped to define the cultural landscape of their times, and then fell out and went their separate ways. Afterwards, both continued to produce significant work, albeit one more artistically groundbreaking, the other more mainstream and populist. After all what is the photography department of the Museum of Modern Art if not 'the gallery the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secessionists could have been', and The Family of Man Steichen's 'Mull of Kintyre'?
If Stieglitz is John Lennon, then Georgia O'Keeffe is his Yoko Ono.  Among the extensive series of photographs Stieglitz took of his second wife over the years of their marriage were some of the first pictures to focus on parts of the human body in isolation. Equally groundbreaking, his 'Equivalents' series of cloud pictures sought to use abstract photographs to explore and express deep personal emotions. Steichen, on the other hand, was taking pictures of film stars or the men and machines of the US military.
Alfred Stieglitz was, to use his own terminology, a 'cultural revolutionist' who helped to shape the development not just of photography but the whole of the visual arts in the United States in the early decades of the twentieth century. At least as important as his own photographic work was his role as a promoter of new photographs and new photographers, including the young Edward Steichen. Through his galleries, and as a magazine editor, Stieglitz used his own 'fanatical enthusiasm' to bring the next generation of American photographers to the attention of the masses.
Stieglitz made things happen. In 1902, when he was asked by the National Arts Club to organise an exhibition of the best American photography, he disagreed with some of the older members of the Club about who should be included. But rather than simply bow to more conservative opinion, he created a brand new group of his own, the Photo-Secessionists. Self-serving as this was in giving his choices a stronger case for legitimacy, it also did a lot to promote a new group of photographers. Endorsement by Stieglitz and the Photo-Secessionists, either in the pages of the influential Camera Work journal or by invitation to exhibit work at the group's gallery on Fifth Avenue, was a real source of inspiration and status for up-and-coming photographers like Steichen, Paul Strand and many others.
It takes a few individuals to mobilise the masses and steer the direction of history. While Steichen was one of those influencers whose work reached many millions of people through his magazine portraits, and later the Family of Man exhibition, Stieglitz influenced the influencers. He was the giant who lifted others onto his shoulders.