In his first years as a photographer, White concentrated on genre subjects like this one, often using young women as his models. Throughout his career, he continued to photograph women, from his mother and members of his wife’s family to well-known actresses of the day, such as Maude Adams. White attempted to imbue women with notions of truth and beauty, a view not uncommon among the photographers known as Pictorialists, who considered the female subject to be the most artistic and spiritual choice in the history of art. Photographs like this one allowed White to experiment with dramatic lighting while simultaneously relating photography to a long tradition of painting, through his use of a female model. [source of text]