Georgia O'Keeffe—Hand and Breasts 1919

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph, ‘Georgia O'Keeffe—Hand and Breasts’, with gelatin silver print on paper. I just love the tonal range of it; the sepia brings a certain warmth. Looking at this image, I imagine Stieglitz considering how light falls and wraps around a body. And then the gesture. Her hand delicately covers her breast. There’s so much tenderness. As a painter, you're always looking for ways to depict volume and form. Stieglitz does that here, not through color, but with a clever dance of light and shadow. There’s a softness and a subtle eroticism, so of its time. Painters and photographers, we're all just trying to figure out how to translate the three-dimensional world onto a two-dimensional surface. We keep the conversation going, adding our own little twist.