Mirror Lake, Valley of the Yosemite 1872

Curator: The still water and looming forms give this image a strangely unsettling beauty. There’s something hypnotic about the doubling. Editor: Indeed. We’re looking at Eadweard Muybridge's "Mirror Lake, Valley of the Yosemite," created in 1872. It's a gelatin-silver print, part of a larger body of landscape photography Muybridge produced, aligning with the Hudson River School's fascination with the American sublime. Curator: That sublime really hits! The inverted mountains could easily be interpreted as an introspective symbol. Think about the double, the shadow self, a Jungian reflection, you could say. What is hidden beneath the surface? Editor: A potent observation. What Muybridge actually captured serves as propaganda—powerful promotional material influencing settlement and exploitation. His images encouraged a narrative of America's limitless resources and potential, deliberately omitting Indigenous realities. Curator: That is fascinating and it complicates what I initially read as serenity. How landscape can function as both a testament to nature and a tool of colonial expansion. Were his landscapes specifically intended for governmental promotion? Editor: More for economic expansion by means of tourism. The railroad companies used images like these widely to lure visitors and investment westward. Note how he frames this vastness—as a spectacle, almost staged, despite appearing completely untouched. Curator: So, it’s more contrived than I first imagined. The dark foreground also now speaks to a calculated omission, shrouding parts of the scene, and the historical record, in shadow. Editor: Precisely. Muybridge gives us a technically brilliant vista, but we should always be mindful of what such captivating imagery enabled in its time, its initial ideological power and ongoing legacy. Curator: A perfect point; thank you. I shall never simply gaze at a mirrored image again! Editor: It seems the layers of reality in "Mirror Lake" extend beyond the visual. Hopefully, we’ve offered our listeners a new point of reflection on a familiar landscape.