Dying Poplar and Live Branch—Lake George 1932

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph, Dying Poplar and Live Branch—Lake George, sometime in his career. It shows an incredible range of greys, like a pencil drawing, but with the starkness only a camera can achieve. The texture is what grabs me. The bare branches, they look like a mess, a tangle. It’s like staring into the complexity of existence itself. And then, there are those tiny leaves, still clinging on, refusing to let go. They’re a reminder of life’s persistence, a little pop of hope amidst the starkness. Look how he frames the subject, so that the branches fill almost the entire picture plane. All the little marks of light and shade create a complex, all-over composition, similar to Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings. It’s about the energy of the lines. Thinking about Stieglitz, I'm reminded of Georgia O'Keefe, with her close-ups of flowers. Both of them found ways to zoom in on the world and make us see things we might otherwise miss.