Equivalent 1927

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph, Equivalent, and though we don’t have an exact date, let's imagine him under an expansive sky, squinting into his camera. The high contrast image, all blacks, whites, and grays, shows a wispy tree that almost disappears into the sky. I can imagine Stieglitz seeing something in this scene that resonated deeply. The soft clouds look like strokes of thinned white paint. The negative space is very active. It reminds me a bit of Georgia O’Keefe’s paintings. They were married, of course, and there was a cross-pollination of ideas. Maybe they were just looking at each other’s work all the time. They were both trying to find equivalents between inner experience and the world around them. I can see a kind of conversation happening between them and other artists throughout time. It reminds me that as artists we’re never really alone. We’re all part of this ongoing exchange, inspiring and challenging each other to see the world in new ways.