Darjeeling; Forest Scene with Creepers, on the Jukvar Road c. 1867

Curator: Samuel Bourne’s photograph, "Darjeeling; Forest Scene with Creepers, on the Jukvar Road," presents a dense thicket. It exudes a still, almost timeless quality. Editor: The overwhelming feeling I get is one of dampness and decay, that sepia tone really lends itself to a sense of nature reclaiming everything. Curator: Bourne would have used the collodion process. Think about the labor involved in creating images like these. Transporting chemicals, glass plates, setting up a darkroom tent on location... Editor: The creeper vines, those tangled elements—they evoke a sense of the exotic, the untamed. There’s an inherent symbolism in the growth, the struggle for light and space within this forest. Curator: Absolutely, and Bourne was making a career documenting such landscapes for a Victorian audience eager for images of the empire's reach. Editor: He was documenting the external world, sure, but he was also giving shape to internal notions of what it meant to be in a place like Darjeeling. A colonial gaze with lasting resonance. Curator: Bourne's choice to picture the road suggests control of the landscape, not just the sublime natural world. Editor: It's a fascinating intersection of culture and nature to consider.