Gezicht op de westelijke haven en havendokken met schepen in Trondheim before 1897

This photographic print, made by Wilhelm Dreesen, captures Trondheim's harbor with its ships and docks. The photographic process itself is critical to understanding the image. Photography was then a relatively recent technology, one that enabled the mass production of images, and a democratization of portraiture and landscape. Consider the labor involved: from the photographer capturing the image, to the technicians who developed and printed it, to the sailors and dockworkers who kept the harbor running. It all speaks to the interconnectedness of early industrial society. The choice of photography as a medium is key; it directly reflects the changing social and economic landscape of the time, capturing a moment in the city's move towards modernity, as new technologies reshaped people's relationship with labor and capital.