From Room 303 (Intimate Gallery)—489 Park Avenue—New York 1927

This photograph, made by Alfred Stieglitz from Room 303 at 489 Park Avenue in New York, pulls you right into the heart of the city’s vertical thrust. You can almost feel Stieglitz there, wrestling with his camera, trying to capture not just the skyscrapers, but maybe the very feeling of a city on the rise. I can imagine him, setting up his equipment, and thinking about the sharp contrast between the old and new, the intimate and the monumental. What does it mean to live in the city? It’s a kind of emotional puzzle, isn’t it? Stieglitz, with his sharp eye, tries to frame it, to pin it down. He was always experimenting, always pushing at the edges of what photography could do. He makes me think of those early modernists who were obsessed with capturing the energy of urban life. But Stieglitz brings his own flavour to it, with his love for texture, light, and the raw, unvarnished truth of the city. And that’s what keeps me coming back to his work. The city is alive.