Edinburgh. Greyfriars' Churchyard 1843 - 1847

Curator: This is "Edinburgh. Greyfriars' Churchyard," taken between 1843 and 1847 by Hill and Adamson. It's an albumen print, giving it that characteristic sepia tone. Editor: It’s a striking photograph. The texture is lovely. There's a seated man reading, seemingly undisturbed by the two grieving women behind him, all set against this imposing monument. How should we interpret it? Curator: Think about albumen printing: how the egg white emulsion allowed for mass production of images. Consider the labour, from the sourcing of materials like silver nitrate, to the coating of the paper, to the sitting itself. Editor: The act of creation feels really relevant to interpreting its meaning here. Curator: Exactly. This wasn't a spontaneous snapshot. It's a carefully constructed image, reliant on the relatively new industrial processes of photography at the time, but trying to capture some essential Romantic sentiment in the location depicted. Who were these people in the photo? Were they commissioned to sit or did they represent real-life subjects? What kind of commentary did Hill and Adamson want to convey to the viewers? Editor: I see your point. We should also look at the historical context - it was a time of huge change, right? Photography changed who had access to portraiture, to constructing identity. Curator: Indeed! And let's think about the "Greyfriars' Churchyard" itself: a site of remembrance, of labor connected with grief and social expectations for loss, which links into how mortality gets marketed. Consider the cost, labor, and consumption bound up in remembrance practices, then and now. Does this change how we understand photography as art in those years? Editor: That makes the image more complex. Seeing it as more than a pretty picture – a reflection of society and labor. I will think about that further. Curator: I’m glad to share my thoughts with you! It’s a way for people to reconsider common assumptions, I think.