As proprietor of the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession and publisher of the photographic journal Camera Work, Stieglitz was the major force in the recognition of photography as an art in America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Stieglitz published this picture of a steamship off the New York waterfront in the October 1911 issue of Camera Work, which featured sixteen photogravures, described by the artist as "Snapshots," from negatives made between 1892 and 1910. In this issue, Stieglitz announced his allegiance with the new credo of "straight photography," marking his transition from soft-focus, dreamlike prints that emulated the effects of Symbolist painting to a more straightforward, yet rigorously composed, depiction of modern life. (MET)