Scenery of Loch Katrine 1844

William Henry Fox Talbot made this photograph, Scenery of Loch Katrine, using the calotype process. This was a time of rapid change in photographic technology and the cultural status of photography. Made in Britain, Talbot's image captures a Scottish loch. This landscape evokes the Romantic movement's interest in the sublime, and the way wild nature could elicit strong emotions. But photography also carried connotations of scientific objectivity, promising a new kind of access to the real. The mass reproduction of images was becoming a possibility, with profound implications for the public understanding of the world. To fully understand this photograph, we can look into the illustrated books of the time, the public debates around the new medium, and the institutional settings in which photography was being developed and displayed. The meaning of art is always shaped by its historical moment.