Equivalent 1925

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph, "Equivalent," and like a painter with a brush, he uses light and shadow to evoke feeling, maybe even transcendence. The swirling forms could be brushstrokes in shades of grey. I can imagine Stieglitz out there, looking up, framing the clouds just so, trying to capture something fleeting. He must have waited for the right moment to come along, when the clouds were just so, the light casting them in a dance of dark and light. The photo has this amazing depth, like you could fall into it. The textures are so smooth and grainy, like charcoal or chalk. The sky isn't just something we see, it’s something we feel. It’s almost as if the camera is his paintbrush, as the darks and lights are carefully developed to convey the emotional equivalent of what he felt looking up. This work seems to be conversing with Romantic landscape painters such as Caspar David Friedrich, who also sought to capture the sublime power of nature. And it reminds me that we’re all connected, drawing inspiration from each other.