Unloading Possibly 1894 - 1896

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph, called ‘Unloading,’ using a process called gelatin silver printing. This was a standard technique for his time. What makes this work interesting is how it shows the relationship between human effort and the natural world. You can see a sailing boat being drawn in to shore by two horses, presumably laden with the day’s catch. The scene speaks to the labor involved in harvesting food, a process that has existed for millennia. But more than that, it speaks to the period in which Stieglitz was working, when such scenes were being rapidly overtaken by industrialization. Stieglitz was a key figure in promoting photography as a fine art. He brought an artistic sensibility to an image of working life, raising questions about both the value of labor, and the value we assign to different ways of depicting it. Ultimately, ‘Unloading’ asks us to think about how photography can elevate everyday life into art, and how labor and materials intertwine with culture and aesthetics.