From My Window at the Shelton, North 1930 - 1931

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph, titled 'From My Window at the Shelton, North', sometime in the first half of the 20th century. It looks like he worked with light and shade, the dark and light tones wrestling for supremacy across the surface. I imagine Stieglitz looking out of his window, feeling the pulse of the city, the vertical thrust of the buildings reaching for the sky. He was a key figure in the development of photography as an art form. You know, it can be so interesting how the act of framing—in this case with a lens rather than a brush—can transform something mundane into something monumental. The angle he's chosen, looking up at the Shelton Hotel, gives it this dynamic energy, as if the building itself is growing. There's a kind of conversation happening between the solid structure of the building and the ephemeral clouds. It reminds me of the way painters like Georgia O'Keeffe, who was also Stieglitz’s wife, captured the essence of things, finding the abstract in the real. It's like they're all riffing off each other, these artists, seeing the world in new ways.