Equivalent 1927

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph, Equivalent, sometime in the early part of the 20th century. It's a photograph, a skill-based medium, but it's also deeply process-oriented, much like a painting. I am really drawn to the range of tones here: the blacks are dense and velvety, and they melt into the grays with the precision of a soft pencil. These gradients give the image a tactile quality, almost like you could reach out and touch the sky. The placement of that sun, or maybe it's the moon, is right in the center, which is what makes the rest of the sky feel balanced. The billowing clouds have a painterly quality as if he’s translated the sky onto the photographic paper. Stieglitz, like Georgia O'Keefe, was always after something more than just what was visible. He wanted to find ways of picturing feelings. Think of Gerhard Richter’s cloud paintings, or Vija Celmins’ night skies; photography and painting both help us embrace the way a good artwork can show that the world is always open to multiple interpretations.