Gezicht op Hastings met de ruïnes van Hastings Castle, gezien vanaf het station 1870 - 1900

Curator: Frances Sutherland Mann, likely working between 1870 and 1900, captured this scene, “Gezicht op Hastings met de ruïnes van Hastings Castle, gezien vanaf het station”—that is, “View of Hastings with the Ruins of Hastings Castle, Seen from the Station.” The medium here is a gelatin-silver print. Editor: My first thought is the light. It's a subdued, hazy kind of light that almost romanticizes the ruins in the background. You can almost smell the dampness. It certainly sets the atmosphere. Curator: Indeed. The choice of gelatin-silver print aligns well with that sensibility, granting the image both soft tonality and a certain crispness. Think about the late 19th century and photography, how a new set of eyes using technology mediated lived experience. There is an element of pictorialism evident in that treatment. Editor: Right, this wasn’t a quick snapshot from a smartphone! I’m drawn to that foreground fence and the path leading to it. It feels very deliberately placed, directing the eye, and framing what becomes a somewhat regimented landscape of tightly packed houses. Curator: Precisely, and this is where we move from light into form. That gate speaks to a moment of transition from pastoral space to urban growth. Do you see the implied narrative—a path from nature to progress and back to history marked by that ancient ruin? The cultural memory of the castle set against the then-contemporary housing developments… Editor: So much feels hidden though, softened—look at the texture of those houses and the contrast between the vegetation in the front and them in the back. Considering the materiality, gelatin-silver allows for a degree of control over contrast. It isn’t only *what* she photographed, but *how* she developed this scene, drawing out the details she wanted us to focus on, and letting the background fade in soft tones.. Curator: Absolutely. Hastings was then transforming from a small medieval town to a popular seaside resort. A silver gelatin print was easily reproducible at the time. The cultural association and easy handling suggests this would have made its way into middle class parlors and gift exchanges rather rapidly. Editor: I find this scene compellingly layered: landscape and cityscape melded with history and industrialization. All created through alchemic-like darkroom processes! I can really appreciate how this one small object would hold and mediate large transitions. Curator: So, what at first appears a simple landscape photograph becomes, upon closer examination, a window into societal shifts and personal perspectives.