The Fishermen's Return Possibly 1894 - 1896

Curator: Before us, we have Alfred Stieglitz’s "The Fishermen's Return," a gelatin-silver print, most likely captured between 1894 and 1896. Editor: There's a certain… gloom to it, isn't there? The way the boats and the figures huddle at the shoreline; the tones all feel a bit desaturated, evoking an emotional landscape rather than a physical one. Curator: Absolutely, and think about the labor involved. Stieglitz wasn’t just pointing and shooting. Every step, from preparing the gelatin emulsion to the final print, involved human hands, transforming base materials through specific, careful actions. The choice of materials themselves—gelatin, silver—they dictated so much. Editor: Yes, and this highlights Stieglitz’s goal of having photography considered one of the fine arts. He wanted to make a visual poetry with his camera. Look at that mass of people; they become more shapes than individuals, echoing the boats that are spread along the beach in a similar way. There's almost a yearning quality in the haze. Curator: Exactly! And that hazy quality stems from the limitations and possibilities of early photography. Gelatin-silver prints could capture detail, yes, but they also invited manipulation in the darkroom. Think of Stieglitz making key choices about the composition but being held at the mercy of these photographic processes and technologies. This is the labor behind capturing a "slice of life." Editor: Stieglitz masterfully turned a mundane subject – fishermen returning home – into something more symbolic, more timeless. Curator: What I love most is how Stieglitz’s manipulation of materials makes me contemplate the lives and labour embedded within this landscape, it is never truly ‘slice of life’, more like constructed experience. Editor: Perhaps it's a prompt to look deeper at the art we view, the work that lies beneath. Curator: A photograph of laborers at leisure that reminds me not to take it easy myself.