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Sample Essay on A Rainy Day in Marathi
Alfred Stieglitz was a photographer that is greatly responsible for making photographs an accepted art form. In these photos, he has demonstrated the artistic skills he had spent the past 40 years learning, by capturing the beauty of delicate and earthly clouds. In the summer of 1922 when he initiated his project, photography was not yet an accepted form of art, like music was. Stieglitz was one of a few artists that argued photography was just as much of a reminiscent art able to bring about strong feelings and memories as the accepted art of music. His portrayal of clouds represented his feelings. All of these photographs were called Equivalents due to their nature of exceeding a description of what was visible to the eye at a surface level, and instead, being symbolic of the weakness and vulnerability a human has. "The world in a great mess: the human being a queer animal—not as dignified as our giant chestnut tree on the hill.” His intrigue and fascination with clouds, combined with his feelings of disintegration as the world around him seemingly fell apart, (dying oak and pine trees, estate almost to pieces, a dying mother, working man but poor) led to his creations. The cloudy skies reflect his gray interstate. He hoped, "Through clouds to put down my philosophy of life —to show that my photographs were not due to the subject matter... and still everyone will never forget them once they have looked at them. I wonder if that is clear” as clear as their ability to remain unforgettable is, in the photos he took using a handheld camera, the clouds are disoriented and of abstract shapes with no clear sharp outlines. He uses a cropping technique since the clouds are chosen out of the continuous never ending sky. He titled his projects: A Sequence of Ten Cloud Photographs (1922) and Songs of the Sky (1923) further demonstrating the comparison of his visual art to auditory music. The Equivalents were presented in sets, for exhibition, with the prints often recombined in various groupings. In the following years, he made 350 cloud studies which were brought forth as contact prints on gelatin silver postcard stock.
Much like Stieglitz, I too used a handheld camera and tilted it to the sky, freezing the moving clouds still into a photo. He put down his philosophy of life, through the clouds, and my photos reflect my perception of how there's a whole world of things to discover, and the best part about it all, is that they're all illusions that are all valid as real as each other in one shape or form. Finding them out to be real, then connecting them with your inner feelings to see how it all fits together, among one big universal web of knowledge and application, to create a piece of art. It comes to show how endlessly abundant our world is, how much there is for us to experience, and to find beauty in. Clouds are otherwise ordinary. Even the appreciation, and action of accepting all that is for what is, is the greatest gift and the currency of love known as Gratefulness. The clouds represent the transcendence of consciousness, of appreciating the illusion of the world. They pass by as days do, and the past does. They represent the endless potential of the imagination, due to their abstract shape. Photographing clouds shows there is fulfillment in being okay with not having to do anything in life, yet taking the time to do something anyway, for the fun and enjoyment of itself. Gray clouds can be indicative that violent thunderstorms are about to come, or volatile emotions. (A portion of the set of my photos taken are in black and white, and have a gloomier mood). Or cloudy skies could mean, they are about to part for sunnier skies filled with rainbows., Reflecting on my inner emotions with art like Stieglitz, it's a retrospective of life that is a very spacy, warm, and loving affair from my own experiences. As well as the darker cloudier skies, symbolize the failed high expectations a person can have, and the struggles someone can have about them. I would think of it as a man moving on from his past problems to find sunnier skies knowing that life has so much more to offer. Like exploration, adventure, imagination, Higher Love, or Agape, as the Ancient Greeks call it. Then, there's an endless amount of ways to self-actualize and philosophize. You could spend the rest of your life doing any of these things, and you wouldn't even begin to reach the end, like the never-ending fabric of clouds in the sky, because that's how infinitely large our minds, feelings, and the world is. However, in this big mystery, one can still win the game of life by solving their own problems, yet immersing in the observation of the grand scheme of things, like capturing vivid images of nature for example. Even, by believing in things people consider absolutely crazy to think are true, (like how visual photography can be one day accepted as art, how Alfred Stieglitz thought)
