From My Window at An American Place, North 1931

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph, From My Window at An American Place, North, without a specified date, in the city. The silvery grays and blacks describe both the solid permanence of architecture, and the fleeting nature of weather. A high viewpoint looks down onto rooftops and towards skyscrapers in midtown Manhattan. The light is soft, almost like the first few minutes after sunrise. Look how the arrangement of buildings creates a composition that is both geometric and organic. Think of the way Stieglitz is dealing with light as a kind of material. The tones become almost like the surface of the photo itself, giving it a tactile quality, despite being a smooth photographic print. Those vertical lines in the middle ground, slicing down from the sky, could be rain, or some kind of construction... or is it a photographic effect? This creates a sense of ambiguity, which is something Stieglitz shared with his contemporary Georgia O'Keeffe, who would also depict the architecture of New York with the same abstract sensibility.