Equivalent c. 1930

This is one of Alfred Stieglitz's photographs, titled "Equivalent," and it’s all about clouds, light and shadow. For Stieglitz, art-making was a process of finding equivalents for feelings. Looking at it, you see how the wispy clouds feel like brushstrokes. The tones aren’t quite black and white, there’s a whole spectrum of greys and light and dark. I get a feeling of movement, like the sky is alive and breathing. He must have been interested in what it feels like to paint, or to draw. There's a tactile quality to the image. It reminds me that photography, like painting, is about capturing something fleeting, something you feel in your gut. Maybe this feels like a painting by Gerhard Richter, who explored similar ideas about photography as a method to create abstracted, painterly surfaces. Ultimately, this piece reminds us that art is an ongoing conversation, an open-ended exploration of perception and feeling, and there are no fixed meanings, just possibilities.