Gezicht op een dorp aan het water vlakbij de American Falls before 1880

Editor: So, this gelatin-silver print is called "Gezicht op een dorp aan het water vlakbij de American Falls," by George Barker, and it was made before 1880. It looks like a landscape. It's interesting how it’s presented within this bound volume. What draws your attention to this photograph? Curator: The first thing I notice is the tension between the industrializing world and the representation of nature. This photograph, produced through a chemical and mechanical process, depicts a village near Niagara Falls, a site already being harnessed for industrial power and becoming a tourist destination. How does the materiality of the print itself – the gelatin silver process – speak to this intersection? Editor: It's almost like the print is trying to capture a vanishing point, an image of a pre-industrial world just as it’s disappearing because of production methods similar to the gelatin-silver print itself! Do you think Barker was aware of that irony? Curator: Certainly, the photograph becomes a commodity, circulated and consumed. The making of this image required labor – the photographer's, but also the workers involved in the manufacture of photographic materials. The viewer benefits, buying a memory, supporting production. Think about the relationship between the raw materials and their transformations: how does this print depend on specific historical conditions of labor and technology? Editor: So, we're seeing the landscape, but also understanding the process of how that landscape was captured and commodified. Curator: Exactly! By examining the means of production, we see that the romantic idea of untouched nature is already mediated by human activity, resource extraction, and, crucially, consumption. What new insight did you have through that idea? Editor: I hadn't thought about it that way, but now it gives a deeper layer to landscape photography that I will bring to future viewings!