This photo captures a dreamy moment in a typical spring season. The sharp outline of the tree and the out-of-focus background create strong visual contrasts and exemplify the theory of “naturalism” followed by Stieglitz: in photographs that reflect this theory, objects in the foreground are captured in clear focus, whereas objects in the background are blurry. Stieglitz took advantage of the rain, which already made the background blurry, and enhanced this effect by using the controlled soft focus technique, which evens the tone of the background. The “visual weight” provided by the sanitary worker on the left perfects the balance of the whole image. Photographers at the turn of the century labeled these slightly out-of-focus photos as the “Fuzzy Wuzzy School”.

SKU: 11918
Creator: Alfred Stieglitz
Date: 1900-1901
Location: Library of Congress