Untitled (picture of group of children sitting on dock) c. 1950

Curator: This silver gelatin print by C. Bennette Moore captures a group of children sitting on a dock. It feels… nostalgic, like a memory half-faded, yet somehow collectively shared. Editor: It's fascinating as a document. You see the raw materiality, the darkroom alchemy that produced this image. Look at how they built that wooden structure, likely from local timber. Curator: I am drawn to the stillness of it all. There's a sense of quiet anticipation, as if they are waiting for something momentous to occur. Do you feel that too? Editor: It feels like a manufacturing of leisure, structured and staged. But I wonder, what kind of labor went into creating this setting? Curator: Perhaps it's the very ordinariness of the scene that lends it its power. A simple moment, preserved. A story to complete. Editor: Indeed. It also represents a bygone era, when communal settings were manually built and photographed using the then-prevalent technologies of the time.