Gezicht op Buttermere in het Lake District before 1870

Editor: So, here we have "Gezicht op Buttermere in het Lake District," a photograph taken before 1870 by Garnett & Bowers. It's an albumen print, giving it that warm, sepia tone. It looks like it’s pasted into an album page… almost like a travel scrapbook. What do you see in this piece, considering its materials? Curator: As a materialist, I find it compelling to consider the process here. The albumen print itself involved a very specific chemical process – egg whites coating paper! It was labor intensive. And seeing it bound in this book like this...it speaks to how photography became part of a broader culture of leisure and consumption. Who was meant to view this album? Editor: Possibly someone wealthy? Someone who could afford travel, and the images to document it. Do you think the materials chosen contribute to that interpretation? Curator: Absolutely. The albumen process, while capable of sharp detail, wasn’t cheap or particularly durable. This indicates a particular value placed on visual representation and aesthetic presentation for a specific audience, the emergent Victorian middle class perhaps? What does the Lake District itself signify in this period? Is it merely scenery or something more complex? Editor: Perhaps an escape from industrialization and a desire for the sublime in nature, reflected through photography's own mechanical, somewhat "industrial" process? I never really thought about that irony before! Curator: Exactly! Thinking about materials allows us to dig deeper into those apparent contradictions. How does the objective nature of photography intersect with the Romantic idea of nature? Food for thought, indeed. Editor: This really opened my eyes to seeing photographs as objects with their own histories, not just images. Thanks! Curator: My pleasure. Thinking materially really transforms our understanding of art!