Buitenzorg - Achter Hotel Belle-Vue 1863 - 1869

Editor: Here we have Woodbury & Page's photograph, "Buitenzorg - Achter Hotel Belle-Vue," a gelatin silver print made sometime between 1863 and 1869. The way the photograph renders this landscape – dense foliage and a distant mountain – almost feels like a dream. What stands out to you? Curator: It's interesting you say 'dream,' because that liminal space – the edge between known and imagined – feels very much at the heart of so-called Orientalist photography. Look at how the "exotic" landscape, teeming with plant life, dwarfs any human presence. Does it strike you as an objective record or something else? Editor: I see what you mean! It's less a factual document and more like... a staged encounter. All those palm trees feel like they’re there to fulfill a Western fantasy. Curator: Precisely! The very act of framing, choosing this vista and not another, that's an act of creation, not simply reflection. And consider the title—'Behind the Belle-Vue Hotel.' What's more ‘civilized’ than a hotel, offering a strategic vantage point from which to ‘consume’ this landscape? Editor: That's such a key observation. I was just seeing a pretty picture, but the hotel’s presence reframes the entire scene! Like a tourist’s curated viewpoint. The implicit colonialism makes me uncomfortable. Curator: Exactly. And that's the power and the problem with these images. They are undeniably beautiful, but that beauty often masks a more complicated story about power, perspective, and representation. Editor: I am going to spend way more time considering the photographer's point of view. Curator: Agreed. We’re looking at a world seen through a very particular lens—one we must always question, even as we appreciate the sheer artistry.