Music—A Sequence of Ten Cloud Photographs, No. VIII 1922

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph, one of his "Songs of the Sky" series, with a camera and photographic paper, sometime in the early 20th century. I'm imagining Stieglitz gazing upwards, maybe even lying down in a field, waiting for the right moment when the clouds assemble themselves just so. The tonality is so soft, almost like a pencil drawing. Look at the rounded forms of the clouds, each one a little different, and how the sun peeks through, hazy and diffused. It reminds me of Agnes Martin's subtle washes of color, or maybe even the misty landscapes of Turner. The more you look, the more you see. It makes you think about the way light can transform a scene, turning something ordinary into something magical. The clouds are arranged in such a way that they seem to be drifting and expanding, like a series of brushstrokes. Stieglitz is in conversation with painters here; like the best paintings, the photograph feels both accidental and intentional. What a feat!