About The Modern Equivalents Portfolio
Modern Equivalents is a photography project that pays homage to the Equivalents project by Alfred Stieglitz. Mr. Steiglitz challenged artistic patrons by photographing clouds and challenging people’s convictions of what constitutes art.
Today, it can be said that the inverse is true. Very few question the artistic value of photography. It can be said that in the present day, photography as an art-form as reached its zenith.
Yet, much of photography is bogged down by the artistic conceptions of a few, followed by a huge legion of followers. I want to challenge this notion once again, by presenting simple, yet textured compositions of clouds. Can photographs of clouds, and nearly nothing else, be a valid form of landscape photography? Can this art stand up with the large number of images with mandatory foregrounds, and people at a scenic view staring off into the distance?
When you view something perceived as simple, you give yourself time to appreciate the subtle complexities of your subject. At first glance, these are clouds. When you take a moment to study the image, you find a completely different world of textures, edges, contrasts, and wonder.
Something as simple as a single cloud can make us stop for a moment to appreciate the true beautiful in this world.