Lake George from the Hill 1932

Alfred Stieglitz captured this photograph of Lake George from the Hill sometime in the early 20th century. I see the artist carefully framing the composition, finding a balance between light and shadow. It makes me wonder, what was it like to be Stieglitz, standing there, looking out over that view? He's wrestling with the question of how to translate a three-dimensional scene onto a flat plane, working with tonal values to create depth and atmosphere. The soft, diffused light gives everything a hazy, dreamlike quality. And look at the way he's captured the texture of the landscape. The way the grass in the foreground seems to sway in the breeze. You can almost feel the cool, damp air on your skin. I bet he was thinking about how photography could be just as expressive and artistic as painting. He's not just documenting a scene. He's trying to capture a feeling, a mood. He, like painters, is thinking about space and depth and the beauty of nature. Photography and painting are always in dialogue. One informs the other, and together, they open up new ways of seeing and experiencing the world.