Pictorial Photography and Social Photography

I really liked Lewis Hine. His biography prior to "Social Photography" made me like him right away. What I liked about him is his selflessness. He devotes his time and efforts to brining child labor into light. The light of the public through the light of  photography. Light is what he says is is the remedy for  "the great social peril of darkness and ignorance", and it is what he uses to try to change the labor laws. I always like to hear about people like this  because I  think they deserve a little  recognition.   I  also liked  the fact that he takes photos of courageous men and women at work. 

Alfred Stieglitz also makes a bold statement in his "Pictorial Photography". He spits on the idea of amateur versus professional as classes of photography. Rather, he separates all photography into three classes: the ignorant, the purely technical, and the artistic. I believe that his system of classification is better because of how much sense it makes as well as how it pitches it. He slanders the fact that amateur photographers cannot create great pictures because it is their hobby and not their profession. Then, he clearly lays out his classifying elements of  his  three categories that make perfect sense. There are those of us  that are naturally artistic, and those of  us who work at but can only force it because we don't have it. Then there are those of us that are completely ignorant. They need not be talked about. But, I find his classification to apply to writing too. You will find that I fall into the category of not artistic; I have to put a lot of time into my writings.