Standard Petroleum Refinery, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania c. 1865

Curator: This stereoscopic image shows the Standard Petroleum Refinery in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, dating back to around 1865, captured by photographer Thomas H. Johnson. Editor: There’s a desolate, almost post-apocalyptic mood to this industrial scene, a world rendered in sepia. I wonder about the lives contained within those structures, hinted at by the dark doorways. Curator: Johnson, known for his commercial work, documents a very particular moment in industrial history. You can almost feel the grimy air in the image, with the bleak industrial landscape setting a strong tone. Editor: Indeed, a strong tone, tinged with uncertainty perhaps? It speaks to how the promise of progress comes at a great cost to those on its front lines, a reflection of American ingenuity set in soot. I think photomontages such as these are fascinating because of the symbols and cultural implications that follow. Curator: The choice of gelatin silver print for the photomontage is worth mentioning; the realism captures details so intensely it lends the landscape authority, and as we now know, these types of authority would cause huge impacts for Pittsburgh socioeconomically. Editor: It's a strange tension: something claiming to represent real life while it transforms it through an image. We know photography offers a seemingly unmediated window onto reality, yet photomontage asserts control and purpose with social meaning, highlighting a precise moment of the cultural narrative within an era. Curator: You touch on such a powerful element of Johnson's photograph, a seemingly innocuous capture of a fleeting moment containing an underlying commentary on America's burgeoning industries and their far-reaching social ramifications. Editor: Absolutely. I think a photomontage is just the thing to achieve it all. Considering how different this era was, compared to our society now, one can contemplate how powerful the photomontage will be in a hundred years from now.