"A Reflection Picture Taken at Paradise Glacier LwC, JRF and Mr. Nutting Aug 1918" 1918

Curator: Look at this arresting vintage photograph from 1918. Its full title, handwritten below the image, reads "A Reflection Picture Taken at Paradise Glacier." We see three figures posed on the snowy surface. Editor: There’s something dreamlike about the inverted reflections mirroring them. The mountain backdrop is also ghosted upside down, which is eerie and ethereal. It almost feels staged. Curator: Staged maybe not. Constructed certainly, given the title itself is a commentary on the making. We might consider it alongside other pictorialist efforts that aimed to elevate photography by imitating painting and other artistic media. There’s a kind of alchemy to capturing and printing the image. Editor: That might explain why the composition draws me in. Those figures with their walking sticks could be pilgrims or some sort of expedition; they call up images of early explorers staking claims or engaging in landscape tourism. Curator: Landscape, in this case, ripe for industry and commerce even then, in 1918. I wonder, do the initials “LwC, JRF, and Mr. Nutting” refer to figures from the lumber or extraction industries of the time, documenting a specific geographical claim perhaps? Editor: Perhaps, but I see more pastoral associations; reflections are age-old symbols for the spiritual and the subconscious, appearing in mythology and folklore globally. The landscape seems to evoke sublime, spiritual ideas. Curator: Yes, the formal strategy itself does point towards wider connections within the development of early photography and its appropriation by multiple groups. From documentation of landscape to artistic tool, from scientific application to popular practice, photography has served multiple and varied purposes. Editor: Looking closer, I agree. The picture presents both a documentation of people and place and the symbolic implications that rise to the surface with reflection. Curator: Quite, a record of materials and manpower, inextricably connected to ideas that endure over time. Editor: Yes, it all hinges on that still pool of water.