The photographs of Alfred Stieglitz
are imbued with an allusive quality that removes them from the realm of the
documentary and into an area of pictorial representation more concerned with
idea and expressiveness. Whether his style was Pictorialist or straight, his
subject a cityscape or a portrait, Stieglitz stressed the elements of formal
composition and metaphorical content over veristic rendition. His most famous
portrait, that of his wife, Georgia O'Keeffe, was an attempt to describe her
fully through a series of individual photographs. Discrete photographic parcels
depicting different moments of her life and others detailing her hands, face, and
other aspects of her body were massed together to provide a more complete
understanding of O'Keeffe's total being.

Although he was an outspoken supporter
of Pictorialism at its zenith, Stieglitz never resorted to soft-focus lenses or
manipulations of his negatives as did other photographers. To achieve similar
results while adhering to a "straight" printing technique, Stieglitz
was more likely to photograph in hazy, misty, snowy, or dimly lit atmospheric
conditions. The fuzziness seen in Miss S.R. is probably caused by
movement of the camera or sitter during the longer exposure period required by
ambient light portraiture.