Photographed in 1889, this early Stieglitz is often cited as the photographer's first masterpiece—though he chose not to exhibit or publish it until 1921, revisiting the image within the context of his later modernist work.

The complexity of the image is inherently modern. Stieglitz's dynamic composition—its dark peripheral shadows and repeating streaks of bright sunlight—rewards the viewer on a visual level; but it also evokes Stieglitz's awareness that photographs can hold multiple layers of aesthetics, meaning, and perception simultaneously. This is a photograph very much about light: the fundamental core and nature of the medium itself, something Stieglitz would continue to examine throughout his career. Built on top of that strong visual language, the photograph contains subtle nods to its maker. The subject, Paula Bauschmied, Stieglitz's then lover, is shown with her back to the camera and surrounded by photographs, head bowed over what suggests a letter, perhaps one addressed to Stieglitz himself.