Apple Tree 1922

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph of an apple tree using gelatin silver print. Look at how Stieglitz coaxes the camera to show us the density and volume of the tree, especially that trunk, leaning into the light. The gelatin silver print gives the image a distinctive tonal range; rich blacks contrast with the bright whites of the apples. Notice the way the light glances off the fruit, each one a little beacon, a punctuation mark on the branches. It is a process of revealing what is there, coaxing it out. Each apple is a small study in light and form, a microcosm of the whole. Stieglitz, like his contemporary Edward Weston, understood the power of photography to abstract and re-present reality. They remind me a little of Cezanne, who sought to capture the underlying structure of objects through careful observation. None of them were really trying to 'capture' anything, they were too busy feeling their way in the dark!