Ida O'Keeffe 1924

Alfred Stieglitz made this black and white photograph of Ida O’Keeffe, Georgia’s sister, using a camera and darkroom. I am thinking about how Stieglitz has framed Ida in a very particular way. She looks like she is caught in the act of smiling. Did Stieglitz ask her to smile? The fur stole she is wearing looks kind of like a snake; maybe it’s her spirit animal? I imagine what it must have been like to be in the O’Keeffe family, so full of artists and creative personalities, the relationships, the competition, the constant need to be seen, or the desire to hide. Stieglitz, like other photographers such as Paul Strand, saw himself as being in dialogue with painters. Through the treatment of light and dark, he attempted to turn photography into a fine art on a par with painting. He wanted to elevate photography to the level of painting. Photography is just another form of mark-making, another way of seeing.