Papenberg Rock c. 1887

Editor: We're looking at Adolfo Farsari's "Papenberg Rock." It's an older photograph and it looks like a hand-tinted albumen silver print. The landscape is beautiful, but I wonder about the economic context. What do you see in this piece, especially regarding the production? Curator: The hand-tinting itself signals a specific process, doesn't it? The labor involved in creating these images, from the photographer to the colorists, speaks to a specific commodification of landscape. We must consider the raw materials, their origins, and the capital invested in their transformation into art objects for consumption. Who was buying these, and what did these scenes signify to them? Editor: So, it is not just an innocent landscape. It reflects a whole system! I hadn't considered the materiality so deeply. Curator: Exactly! Think about the social life of the photograph, beyond the aesthetic.