Georgia O'Keeffe 1936

This photograph of Georgia O'Keeffe was captured by Alfred Stieglitz using a gelatin silver print, a process that defined much of twentieth-century photography. Stieglitz mastered the darkroom, manipulating light and shadow to imbue his prints with a painterly quality, very much aligned with pictorialism. The gelatin silver process involves coating paper with light-sensitive silver halide crystals, then exposing it to light through a negative. The resulting image is then developed and fixed. Stieglitz’s meticulous attention to detail is evident in the print's rich tonal range and sharp focus. Photography in Stieglitz's hands moved beyond mere documentation, and became a medium for artistic expression. His portraits of O’Keeffe, in particular, were groundbreaking, capturing her essence with a directness and intimacy that challenged traditional portraiture. This image, with its emphasis on texture and form, elevates the photographic print to the level of fine art, blurring the lines between craft and art.