West 1987

Curator: So here we have James Welling's "West," a gelatin-silver print from 1987. My initial impression is bleak; it's just tracks heading into nowhere! Editor: Bleak perhaps, but elegantly so. Notice how Welling composes the scene: the converging lines of the railroad tracks bisect the picture plane, drawing your eye relentlessly into the distance, into a vanishing point. Curator: Yes, the linearity is definitely there, the whole thing has a coldness to it. It's interesting how the desaturated blacks and whites mute the surrounding landscape. No colorful distractions—just steel and dormant trees. I find the contrast intriguing, almost jarring in how industrial is juxtaposed with nature. Editor: Exactly! This stark contrast heightens the tension. Think of the gelatin-silver print medium: its capacity for nuanced gradations is perfect for delineating form. What at first seems like a plain scene is anything but when we look closely at how light and shadow are calibrated across textures like gravel, metal, and bark. Curator: It certainly demands your attention, doesn't it? I mean, a railroad isn't typically considered…scenic. And that perspective - you’re not traveling on them, so its a sort of frozen space you see the path from above, from nowhere... It evokes that sense of isolation when traveling to some unknown place... like waiting for a train to your future? Editor: The 'frozen space' quality you mention brings us to photography’s inherent capability for stillness, a fixed gaze. I see Modernism's obsession with speed and transit here but framed through a lens of melancholic reflection on the effects on nature—not celebrating it. It uses strong, repeating geometric forms yet speaks to a broader sense of longing for simpler places as industry grows all around you. Curator: Ultimately, I walk away feeling like he's found poetry within the mundane – and perhaps even the somewhat destructive. Welling reframes that, and forces us to ponder progress against nature, and the cold spaces we now traverse within. Editor: Indeed. Welling prompts us to examine not only the structural qualities of the photograph but also its haunting narrative of industrial advancement cutting its path.