Fotoreproductie van het schilderij 'Bethlehem, Convent of the Nativity' door Conway Shipley before 1865

Editor: So, here we have a photographic reproduction of a painting titled "Bethlehem, Convent of the Nativity" by Conway Shipley, created before 1865. It's an albumen print landscape and has an almost dreamlike quality to it. What's your take on it? Curator: I see this work as a powerful document embedded within the historical context of colonial photography and religious tourism. The composition, while seemingly straightforward, performs a very specific kind of image-making, catering to Western expectations and fantasies about the “Holy Land”. Editor: How so? Curator: Think about the strategic viewpoint. Elevated, distanced... It evokes a sense of possession, a visual claiming of territory. The Convent of the Nativity, central to Christian belief, is rendered as a picturesque object within a landscape. The focus isn't necessarily on spiritual depth, but on a consumable, exoticized view. It also reduces the native presence to nothingness, focusing purely on the Westerners view, right? Editor: That's a good point. I was just seeing a historical landscape. I didn't consider that it's someone's constructed gaze. Curator: Exactly! Consider how photography during this period was also used as a tool of empire, to categorize, document, and ultimately, control. By circulating images like these, what narratives about the “other” are being perpetuated, and for whose benefit? Editor: I suppose it also shaped how Westerners perceived and interacted with Bethlehem at the time, influencing tourism and even political involvement. I'll never look at these old photos the same way. Curator: Hopefully you won’t! It’s essential to critically engage with the historical power dynamics encoded within seemingly benign landscape images.