Ellen Koeniger, Lake George 1916

This photograph, *Ellen Koeniger, Lake George*, was made by Alfred Stieglitz, though the date is uncertain, it is certainly an image rooted in a time of great change, both social and technological. I am interested in the way the light in this photograph reveals the physicality of the subject. Notice how the water clings to the swimmer's dark bathing suit, creating a second skin of shimmering droplets. This gives the image an incredible tactile quality. You can almost feel the coolness of the water and the weight of the fabric, as if you could reach out and touch it. There's an intimacy here, a sense of being close to the subject. Photography allows a certain kind of truth-telling, but it is also an abstraction, a translation of three dimensions into two. Like Edgar Degas's pastels of bathers, it's art, but it's also a record. It's a moment captured, but also a moment transformed. It embraces ambiguity, inviting us to project our own experiences and interpretations onto the image.