Poplars - Lake George 1935

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph, *Poplars - Lake George*, with a camera. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say it was probably a heavy camera on a tripod, that needed a lot of light to work, given the time. I am imagining Stieglitz, lugging his equipment around, trying to capture the scene just so. What strikes me is the repetition of vertical lines, like a dance between nature and the photographer. It's a quiet, unassuming scene, but the longer you look, the more those dark, soft, grayscale tones draw you in. The composition is interesting too, with those poplars almost reaching towards the sky, framed by the other trees. It feels like he is in conversation with other photographers and painters of the time, like Georgia O’Keeffe, playing with light and form, exploring the beauty in simplicity. It's a reminder that art is an ongoing dialogue, across mediums and across time.