Glacier Point, 3,300 ft., Yosemite Valley, California c. 1880s

Curator: There's something about this landscape that feels both epic and deeply personal, almost like a stage set for the drama of being human. Editor: Isaiah West Taber captured this hand-colored view of Glacier Point in Yosemite. The figures perched on the edge really give us a sense of scale, and the perilousness of westward expansion. Curator: Perilous indeed! But also, I see a yearning, a collective breath held as they gaze out. The colors, slightly dreamlike, amplify that feeling. It's about wonder more than conquest, I think. Editor: Perhaps. But landscape photography of this era was inextricably linked to manifest destiny, the ideology that justified dispossession of indigenous lands. Curator: I suppose. But it is so beautiful. It reminds us of the sublime, doesn’t it? Editor: It speaks to the complexity of our relationship with nature, the tension between appreciation and exploitation. Curator: I love how Taber uses color to soften the harshness of the scene. Editor: Precisely. The hand-coloring, like the landscape itself, is a carefully constructed artifice. Curator: A reminder that even the grandest vistas are shaped by human hands, and human stories. Editor: And imbued with histories we must acknowledge.