life. Stieglitz formally started photography at the age of nineteen, during his first years at the Berlin Polytechnic School. At this time photography was in its infancy as an art form. Alfred learned the fine arts of photography by watching a local photographer in Berlin working in the store's dark room. After making a few pictures of his room and himself, he enrolled in a photochemistry course. This is where his photography career would begin. His earliest public recognition came from England and Germany. It began in 1887 when Stieglitz won the first of his many first prizes in a competition. The judge who gave him the award was Dr. P.H. Emerson, then the most widely known English advocate of photography as an art (Doty 23). Dr. Emerson later wrote to Stieglitz about his work sent in to the competition: "It is perhaps late for me to express my admiration of the work you sent into the holiday competition. It was the spontaneous work in the exhibition and I was delighted with much of it", (Bry 11). The first photographer organization Alfred joined while still in Berlin, was the German Society of the Friends of Photography. After returning to the United States 1890, Stieglitz joined the Society of Amateur Photographers of New York. These experiences would later help him in years to come. By 1902 Stieglitz had become the authority in his chosen field. Stieglitz found that his achievements were not enough to win recognition for photography. Finally in 1902 he founded an entirely new photography group of his ...
