Equivalent, from Set A (Third Set, Print 2) 1929

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph, Equivalent, with his camera sometime in the early part of the 20th century. It’s full of billowing forms and dark tonalities, with just a bright circle, maybe the sun, wedged in the upper right. I can imagine Stieglitz looking up at the sky and thinking about painting, trying to find another way to express his inner feelings and ideas. What do you think he was trying to capture? Was he searching for the equivalent of what a painter like Monet or Whistler found in their art? The image looks like it’s about paint, even though it’s a photograph! The tonal scale and grainy texture have this all-over quality, where the light seems to sculpt the image in a way that’s similar to the way painters build up a surface with brushstrokes. I’m always amazed at how artists, in their own ways, keep answering each other across time. Stieglitz looks at painters, and we look at him looking! Each gesture, each image, is a new way of experiencing the world, embracing its many meanings.