New York from An American Place c. 1931

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph, New York from An American Place, with gelatin silver. It is like a symphony of greys, with all these buildings layered and stacked, fighting for space. You have got the high-rises reaching for the sky, then a jumble of rooftops down below. What grabs me is the texture: the graininess of the image, the way the light hits the buildings. They are not smooth and perfect but have got this real grit to them. Look at the building on the right, up close: the way the bricks are laid, the shadows in the windows. It makes you think about the physical effort, the labor that goes into making a city. I am thinking of the painter, Edward Hopper, and the way that he captured New York. Both of them see the beauty in the everyday, the way that the light falls, the shapes that things make. And both of them understand that art is not about perfection, it is about seeing the world in a new way.