Equivalents 1927

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph, Equivalents, playing with light and shadow, using a camera as his brush. There is a way of thinking about photography that is very hands off, the camera does everything, right? But when I look at the swirling shapes and the tonal range of this piece, I can feel Stieglitz experimenting with the possibilities of the medium. The black and white palette here has a painterly quality. The textures in the clouds, the way they’re smudged and blurred, it's almost like he's sculpting them with light. The lower part of the frame is solid and dark, but I see a huge amount of movement above, a sense of drama. The composition emphasizes the sky's capacity to reflect a wide range of moods and experiences, as if the clouds are a projection of inner states. The work reminds me of some of Gerhard Richter’s cloudscapes, although there’s a grittiness in Stieglitz that Richter doesn’t have. But, both of them show us how art can be about seeing and feeling, rather than just describing.