Hôtel de la Métropole, Genève 1853 - 1895

This albumen print of the Hôtel de la Métropole in Geneva was made by Auguste Garcin in the late 19th century. Photography, though seemingly instantaneous, requires a great deal of labor. A single print involves coating paper with light-sensitive chemicals, exposing it in a camera, developing the image, and then carefully washing and drying the final product. All of these steps would have been done by hand in Garcin’s time, and they demanded skill and precision. Consider the social context of this image, too. Hotels like the Metropole catered to a wealthy clientele, and photography offered a means of capturing and circulating images of this exclusive world. Garcin's print aestheticizes a monument to luxury, but also testifies to the many unseen hands that went into making both the hotel and the photograph itself. By focusing on the materials, the making and the social context, we can appreciate how even a seemingly straightforward image like this one is deeply embedded in the world of labor, politics, and consumption.