The hot springs at Manikarn before 1895

Curator: Looking at this gelatin-silver print, the rugged textures of rock seem almost palpable, don't they? It's titled "The hot springs at Manikarn", and was taken by Frederick Saint John Gore sometime before 1895. Editor: The scale is somewhat deceiving; it's so monochrome that I struggle to comprehend if it is a very close-up image or far away. Curator: That sense of ambiguity plays interestingly with the historical context, the high Himalayas, which carry so much cultural and religious weight. Hot springs, like the ones here in Manikarn, are often sites of healing and pilgrimage. Does knowing this deepen your reading of it? Editor: Definitely. Now I understand the choice of light and darkness! Note how the tonal gradation gives a formal coherence—there is almost a perfect compositional balance of light and dark fields. Curator: Precisely. And I wonder, how was landscape understood through the colonial lens, or that of empire, which also shaped how spaces are controlled and consumed. It begs us to consider who had access to such a site and how that power was mapped. Editor: But still, the contrast holds me the most; I see the tension of hard rock opposing a shifting river, reflecting a struggle with nature. Curator: And I suppose within this struggle there could be potential liberation or even new epistemologies; one that counters the colonial mindset, revealing indigenous resilience. Editor: In the end, regardless of perspective, it’s the photographic choices that help frame my awareness. Curator: The materiality combined with our lived experience indeed mediates meaning!