From My Window at An American Place, Southwest 1932

Alfred Stieglitz captured "From My Window at An American Place, Southwest" with his camera, achieving a range of grays that speaks to the heart of photography as an art form. It's about seeing—and making—a world anew, bit by bit. What strikes me is the way he uses shadow. Look how the buildings on either side frame the skeletal skyscraper under construction. It's like the city is growing, evolving, right before our eyes, with hard geometry that gives way to ghostly atmosphere. The contrast between the solidity of the structures and the ethereal quality of the light suggests the fleeting nature of progress. Stieglitz reminds me of other artists, like Giorgio de Chirico, who captured the eerie loneliness of the modern city. Both find a strange beauty in the man-made world, a world that's constantly shifting and changing, inviting us to see it with fresh eyes. It's never just one thing, is it?