Songs of the Sky B5 1923

Alfred Stieglitz shot 'Songs of the Sky B5' with a camera, making what he called 'equivalents'. The act of photographing these clouds must have been like chasing ghosts, trying to capture something so fleeting and ever-changing. I imagine him, eyes skyward, framing the light as it shifted. A dance of intuition and chance. The tonal range in this print is exquisite—from the deepest blacks to the softest grays, each cloud seems to breathe with its own light. The textures! Are they soft and billowy, or sharp and defined? Maybe both. In a way, this reminds me of Gerhard Richter’s cloud paintings, how he used photography as source material. Both artists seem to be grappling with capturing something ungraspable. Ultimately, Stieglitz's cloudscapes are about seeing—not just what’s in front of us, but how the act of looking can be a form of deep expression. It is a reminder that artists are always building on what came before.