Selections from The American Museum of Photography (SM)

 

Boughton was a Fellow of the Photo-Secession, Alfred Stieglitz’s circle of creative and modernist photographers that was highly influential in the early years of the 20th century.

Alice Boughton’s 1905 essay “Photography, A Medium of Expression” was reprinted in Camera Work, the magazine edited by Stieglitz. Two of her comments seem pertinent to this free-spirited image:

On Glycerine Printing:

…The glycerine print allows a more limited freedom [than the gum bichromate process]; the result has somewhat the appearance of a wash-drawing. A platinum print is covered with glycerine, and the parts to be brought out are developed by means of a brush. The glycerine retards development, so that the process can be regulated by keeping a sufficient quantity over the portions to be omitted and letting it run off into an irregular and undefined edge…

On Portraiture:

…if the photographer has sufficient insight to perceive the interest and character of the sitter, the result may be a real achievement. This does not necessarily mean that the subject should be beautiful or graceful, or “know how to pose.” It is the photographer’s business to try and seize upon and bring out the innate quality, the individuality or charm of each.

—Camera Work Number 25, January 1909

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