Gezicht op Penmaenmawr aan de kust, gezien vanaf Holyhead Road 1860 - 1901

This photograph, "Gezicht op Penmaenmawr aan de kust, gezien vanaf Holyhead Road," was made by Carl Norman & Co. and is a printed representation of a place, but it’s also a document of labor and industrial development. Consider the physical act of making a photograph at this time. The camera, the glass plates, the darkroom chemicals – all these elements had to be precisely handled. Each image was a miniature factory of chemical and mechanical processes, and its success depended upon meticulous technique. In this particular image, we see a coastal view altered by human intervention. The very road from which the photograph was taken involved hewn stones. And look at the pier in the distance, and the railway running along the coast. All of these elements, captured here through the alchemical process of photography, speaks volumes about the work, capital, and landscape transformations that defined the era. These photographs serve as a reminder that every image, like every object, carries a trace of the labor and materials that brought it into being.