Gezicht op een rotspilaar in Colorado Springs before 1893

Curator: Looking at this spread, I feel utterly dwarfed by the sheer scale of nature. It's so humbling! Editor: Absolutely. And we can explore that sentiment with the image on the right. This albumen print, titled “Gezicht op een rotspilaar in Colorado Springs”, was created before 1893 by an anonymous photographer, showcasing these striking rock formations. It’s one of several landscape studies in this printed volume. Curator: It's funny how the black and white, you know, the lack of color, kind of abstracts the scene, pushes it towards something monumental and… dreamlike. Even timeless. You can imagine it could be the surface of Mars, with those rock monoliths standing proud. Editor: Interesting you say that. The pictorialist style, visible in the soft focus and tonal range, sought to elevate photography to the level of fine art. So rather than just recording a scene, it transforms into something emotive, aspirational perhaps. There's a deliberate aesthetic choice in presenting nature this way. Curator: Right! So, it's less about documenting a specific place and more about evoking… a feeling. It reminds me of those epic landscape paintings from the Hudson River School, full of awe and grandeur. The artist or, in this case, the photographer, seems to want to inspire reverence for the natural world. Editor: That reverence was definitely tied to ideas about the American West at the time. Manifest Destiny and this notion of untamed wilderness, ripe for exploration and… ultimately, exploitation. Photography played a key role in shaping those narratives, making it all feel majestic. Curator: There’s this wonderful stillness, too, which I’m totally drawn to. Everything feels so solid and unyielding, but the soft focus, as you said, lends the photograph an otherworldly beauty. What about the people or figures that must've stood at the same scene the artist did to create this image? It's their silent witness too. It’s their shadow that is felt throughout the work. Editor: True! This reminds us that images can often be used for national and political campaigns; this work, as an object of sublime aesthetic interest, hides stories about colonial advancement across western North America, reflecting a romantic and epic scope of the land. Curator: Well, either way, looking at this image made me feel that something important is remembered or kept between those stony corridors of history and light. Editor: I concur completely. There's certainly something grand and captivating to be explored about this printed albumen.