Hailing the Ferry 1901

Editor: Here we have John Dumont’s gelatin silver print, “Hailing the Ferry” from 1901. It’s a hazy scene, dreamlike almost, showing two figures in a boat near a grassy bank. The entire scene is imbued with sepia tones. What catches your eye in this image? Curator: It pulls me in with its gentle light, like a memory half-forgotten. It reminds me of summer afternoons and that bittersweet feeling of time slipping away, doesn't it? I suppose it has to do with how Dumont embraced pictorialism, seeing photography as art. But that tonality--I want to ask what you feel as you think of a "ferry." Editor: Well, there’s this sense of waiting and anticipation, wanting to get *somewhere*. The ferry is clearly meant to take them across, but I also feel suspended somehow, enjoying just the present moment, lingering on the water... Curator: Exactly! It's not just about the *destination*, is it? Notice how the reflection in the water doubles everything, like a meditation on identity and doubling. That's what pictorialism was always interested in – going beyond documentation into the realm of the emotional. Think of it: Dumont is trying to do *painting* with a camera! Editor: It's funny how this print makes you consider all the ways an image, even a photograph, can invite interpretation like painting. It makes you think, what's the "true" subject, after all? Curator: Perhaps the true subject lies within *us*, what the image awakens in our own memories and dreams. A mirror to the soul, wouldn't you say? That's what Dumont might have thought, if we could ask him!