page_title: Camera Work
section_title: Early years (1903–1906)
hierarchical_section_title: Camera Work / Publishing history / Early years (1903–1906)
caption_attribution_description: English: "Lenore", by Joseph T. Keiley
context_page_description: Camera Work was a quarterly photographic journal published by Alfred Stieglitz from 1903 to 1917. It is known for its many high-quality photogravures by some of the most important photographers in the world and its editorial purpose to establish photography as a fine art. It has been called "consummately intellectual", "by far the most beautiful of all photographic magazines", and "a portrait of an age [in which] the artistic sensibility of the nineteenth century was transformed into the artistic awareness of the present day."
context_section_description: The inaugural issue of Camera Work was dated January 1903, but was actually mailed on 15 December 1902. In it Stieglitz set forth the mission of the new journal:
  "Photography being in the main a process in monochrome, it is one subtle gradations of tone and value that its artistic beauty so frequently depends. It is therefore highly necessary that reproductions of photographic work must be made with exceptional care, and discretion of the spirit of the original is to be retained, though no reproductions can do justice to the subtleties of some photographs. Such supervision will be given to the illustrations that will appear in each number of Camera Work. Only examples of such works as gives evidence of individuality and artistic worth, regardless of school, or contains some exceptional feature of technical merit, or such as exemplifies some treatment worthy of consideration, will find recognition in these pages. Nevertheless, the Pictorial will be the dominating feature of the magazine."
  In his first editorial Stieglitz expressed gratitude to a group photographers to whom he was indebted. He listed them in a specific order: Robert Demachy, Will Cadby, Edward Steichen, Gertrude Käsebier, Frank Eugene, James Craig Annan, Clarence H. White, William Dyer, Eva Watson, Frances Benjamin Johnston, and R. Child Baley. Over the next fourteen years he showed a decided bias by publishing many of their photographs while other talented photographers barely received notice.
   
  During this early period Stieglitz used Camera Work to expand the same vision and aesthetics that he had promoted in Camera Notes. He even used the services of the same three assistant editors who worked with him on Camera Notes: Dallett Fuguet, Joseph Keiley and John Francis Strauss. Over the years both Fuguet and Keiley contributed extensively to the journal through their own articles and photographs. Strauss’ role appears to have been more in the background. Neither Stieglitz nor his associate editors received a salary for their work, nor were any photographers paid for having their work published.
  One of its purposes of the new journal was to serve as a vehicle for the Photo-Secession, an invitation-only group that Stieglitz founded in 1902 to promote photography as an art form. Much of the work published in Camera Work would come from the Photo-Secession exhibitions he hosted, and soon rumors circulated that the magazine was intended only for those involved in the Photo-Secession. In 1904 Stieglitz attempted to counter this idea by publishing a full-page notice in the journal in order to correct the "erroneous impression…that only the favored few are admitted to our subscription list." He then went on to say "…although it is the mouthpiece of the Photo-Secession that fact will not be allowed to hamper its independence in the slightest degree."
  While making this proclamation in the journal, Stieglitz continued to unabashedly promote the Photo-Secession in its pages. In 1905, he wrote "The most important step in the history of the Photo-Secession" was taken with the opening of his photography gallery that year. "Without the flourish of trumpets, without the stereotypes press-view or similar antiquated functions, the Secessionists and a few friends informally opened the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession at 291 Fifth Avenue, New York."
caption: Lenore, by Joseph Keiley. Published in Camera Work No 17, 1907
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