Fullmer, Catcher, Baltimore Orioles, from the Old Judge series (N172) for Old Judge Cigarettes 1888

Curator: This gelatin-silver print, produced in 1888 by Goodwin & Company, is a portrait of Fullmer, a catcher for the Baltimore Orioles. Part of the Old Judge Cigarettes series, it's a compelling image of an athlete frozen in time. Editor: Immediately, I’m struck by its sepia tones and the subject’s rigid stance. It feels posed, less about capturing athletic prowess and more about the burgeoning culture surrounding early baseball. Curator: Precisely. The image, primarily structured through vertical and horizontal lines, evokes the values associated with sport. He occupies the full space. There is limited depth as a product of early photograph, a style of studio portraiture mimicking painted likenesses. Editor: But let’s consider the means of its distribution. These cards came with cigarettes, which speaks to a very particular moment of industrial growth, mass consumption, and, of course, the rise of baseball's popularity, both linked to specific industrial supply chains of print making. It's almost a commodity fetish in its purest form – baseball as marketing object for vice. Curator: The semiotic tension lies between the high ideals of sportsmanship—strength, discipline—and its literal encapsulation within something as quotidian and arguably unhealthy as a cigarette package. Look at the light catching on his uniform. Editor: Which, itself, represents a sort of uniformity, a literal uniform tying individuals to larger institutional, and, capitalist structures. I wonder about the unseen labour involved in the mass production of these images; it also is indicative of consumer desire and changing leisure activities. Curator: Absolutely, but what I see here is how it foreshadows sports photography and the valorization of athletes as icons. The careful orchestration of pose and gaze – the very materiality of this mass-produced photograph contributes to a construction of athletic celebrity. Editor: Ultimately, it becomes an archive to a lost form of distribution, and yet a recognizable portrait for what’s now big business, linking players, sport and corporations as always already intwined, from inception. Curator: An elegant visual economy linking athleticism, consumption, and the advent of celebrity, and formal portraiture. Editor: Indeed, seeing beyond the pose, we gain a more informed and intricate perspective of this image.