Georgia O'Keeffe 1935

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph of Georgia O’Keeffe, likely in his New York studio, using his large format camera. The way Stieglitz uses light and shadow, it's like he's painting with the camera. Look at her hands, framing her face, those stark contrasts and deep blacks. The photograph feels incredibly intimate, capturing O’Keeffe in a moment of quiet contemplation. The texture of her skin, the soft focus, it’s all so palpable. It makes me think about how he's really drawing out her personality through the material of photography itself, the way he directs the light and picks his moment. It's a bit like how I might layer colors in a painting to get a certain feeling. This image reminds me of some of Edward Steichen’s portraits, especially in how both photographers aimed to reveal the inner lives of their subjects, and maybe even to define a new kind of modern sensibility. Art's not about answers, is it? It's about looking and feeling.