'Midst Steam and Smoke c. 20th century

Curator: This striking photograph is entitled 'Midst Steam and Smoke'. The photographer, Prescott Adamson, captured this urban landscape sometime in the 20th century. It's a photogravure, so technically a print. Editor: My first thought? Bleakness. An overwhelming atmosphere of industry pressing down upon a wintery cityscape. It's dominated by a rather restricted tonal range; a somber arrangement of browns, grays and muted whites. Curator: Indeed. Adamson was a member of the Minneapolis Camera Club, and images such as this capture a crucial shift in photographic practice, away from pictorialism towards a more straightforward realism and, frankly, modernism. We see visual parallels with paintings like 'factories at Asnieres' by Van Gogh for example. Both artists chose to foreground industrialisation. Editor: It certainly conveys the scale of production. Visually, the tiered composition works almost as an organizational principle. Leading our eye from those heavy forms at the bottom, likely railcars, up through the shrouded factory buildings to the towering smoke stacks. Note, the limited depth of field pushes the factories toward the foreground in defiance of linear perspective. This evokes a kind of claustrophobia. Curator: The lone figure trudging alongside the tracks accentuates that sense of the dehumanizing effect of industry. There's something quite universal in the symbolism of the city's smokestacks reaching up to the heavens. Think of the Tower of Babel—an allusion to human ambition, yet perhaps also to alienation from the natural world. The snow itself might symbolize a longing for purity. Editor: Interesting. But does such allegorical symbolism limit it? I find it fascinating that even within this grayscale palette, subtle textural variances make the picture incredibly nuanced. From the delicate cloud of smoke to the almost crunchy granulated textures of the snow, it evokes a powerful sense of time and place. Curator: It does highlight the ambivalence many felt as America hurtled toward becoming an industrialized powerhouse. Consider too how our cultural memory still clings to similar visual shorthand in our post-industrial society. A grim landscape still signifies a loss of simpler times. Editor: Perhaps that’s what continues to resonate about this piece. Through form and tonal control, Adamson achieved something timeless: a portrait of societal unease that goes far beyond its mere subject matter. Curator: An effective summary!