From My Window at An American Place, North 1931

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph of a northern view from his gallery in New York. The image, rendered in monochrome, offers a study in contrasts, a dance between light and shadow that reveals the materiality of the city. Look at how the light catches the edges of the buildings, each plane defined by subtle tonal shifts. The windows become individual units, each a tiny canvas reflecting the urban landscape. I'm really interested in how the composition balances the dense geometry of the skyscrapers with the more intimate scale of the rooftops. It's almost like a conversation between the monumental and the everyday, a push and pull between the abstract and the concrete. This shot makes me think about those early modernist painters like Mondrian and their explorations of geometric abstraction, but here, it's all found, ready-made, in the fabric of the city. Stieglitz helps us to notice these found abstractions.