1. What features of this photographic portrait stand out for you?
2. Does this photograph contain an expression of the photographer’s attitude towards its subject?
3. What does the photograph convey about the person portrayed in it?
4. How does learning that the person in the photograph is the photographer’s wife change your understanding of it if at all?
5. In what sense do you think photographs resemble the things they are of? Are they different than paintings in this way?
6. Do you trust a photograph more than you trust a painting? In what way(s)? Why? Are there ways in which you trust paintings more than photographs?

“Alfred Stieglitz and American Photography” from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

More information on Georgia O’Keeffe and her art

Photography Overview and Resources

Photography is an art form that came into existence in the mid-nineteenth century. At the outset, photography consisted of the recording of light on a photo-sensitive emulsion. In recent decades, digital technology has replaced the photo-chemical one, transforming the nature of photography. Because photography reproduced reality in a naturalistic manner, it caused a crisis in traditional painting and the art world at large.

Resources on photography from the Museum of Modern Art


Timeline for the history of photography

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