Equivalent 1926

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph, “Equivalent,” probably in the 1920s with a camera and a darkroom. What gets me about this image is how it feels almost like a painting, the way the clouds seem to churn and blend into each other. You know, when I look at this photo, I can almost feel the dampness in the air, the cool breeze on my face. Stieglitz really captured something essential about the sky, not just how it looks, but how it feels. Look closely at the way the light filters through the clouds, creating these soft, blurry edges. It's like he's playing with the idea of focus and blur, inviting us to get lost in the details, or maybe to let our eyes wander and find our own shapes and stories in the clouds. It reminds me a bit of some of Gerhard Richter's abstract paintings, where he drags the paint across the canvas to create these blurry, atmospheric effects. Both artists seem to be interested in capturing a sense of something beyond the surface, something ephemeral and hard to pin down. It’s like they’re both saying, “Hey, look, there’s more to see here than you think.”