Zicht vanaf de Borobudur op de berg Menorah. Possibly 1873 - 1879

This photograph, taken by Isidore Kinsbergen, captures a landscape in Java. Kinsbergen worked in the wet plate collodion process, a painstaking procedure that involved coating a glass plate with chemicals, exposing it in the camera while still wet, and then developing it immediately. The resulting image is incredibly detailed, a testament to the technical skill and physical labor involved. The landscape stretches out before us, revealing the way that human cultivation shapes the environment. The rice paddies, carefully terraced and irrigated, demonstrate a long history of human intervention in the natural world. Consider the social context: Kinsbergen worked in the Dutch East Indies, a colony where labor and resources were extracted for the benefit of the colonizers. This photograph, in its very making, embodies that relationship, documenting both the beauty of the landscape and the impact of human industry upon it. It serves as a reminder that all images are made, not just taken, and that the process of their making always matters.