Songs of the Sky 1924

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph, Songs of the Sky, using gelatin silver. I imagine Stieglitz out there, wrestling with light, trying to capture something as fleeting as the sky. It’s a study in greys, a monochrome dance between light and shadow that kind of reminds me of Gerhard Richter’s blurry photos-paintings. Look at those clouds! How they billow and morph, like thoughts taking shape. I bet Stieglitz was thinking about equivalents, about how the external world mirrors our internal states. It's like he’s not just photographing clouds, but feelings, or ideas. He’s trying to distill something essential, something beyond representation. And that mountain in the background – that’s the constant, the thing that remains while everything else is in flux. For me, it is like de Kooning's landscapes and figures. Stieglitz isn’t just showing us a landscape, he’s inviting us to contemplate the ephemeral nature of existence.