Rev. Dr. Thomas Chalmers (?) 1843 - 1847

Curator: I find myself strangely moved by this gelatin-silver print, possibly of Rev. Dr. Thomas Chalmers. Hill and Adamson captured it sometime between 1843 and 1847. Editor: Somber, wouldn't you say? He looks out with a kind of weary knowing, a bit like an old photograph I saw once of my grandfather – but with, perhaps, a greater burden held in those eyes. Curator: There’s a stark beauty in the process itself, in how this image came into being. Think about the material reality – silver reacting to light, a very precise moment, capturing a minister no less. It shrinks the world down in ways we rarely think about today. Editor: True. But isn't it the face itself that captures us? Those lines etched by time, and conviction. The faint hint of Romanticism, really bringing to mind ideas around emotionality of life as captured in the single human being. But the technology…it’s fascinating, like alchemy with a dash of societal power at that specific historical point. Curator: Exactly. Consider the cultural weight of photography in those years. It offered, ostensibly, to capture and distribute 'likenesses', challenging established portraiture, democratising image-making. Editor: So, from oil paint to light-sensitive salts, capturing preachers? Curator: (chuckles) Fair point! Perhaps the tools changed, but the need for record keeping of important societal figures? I feel it stays. Editor: Right, right. It reminds you, doesn’t it, that underneath all this material stuff – the chemistry, the silver – lies a constant hunger to grasp something beyond the fleeting. The Romantic in me believes it and perhaps so does this particular "Rev. Dr. Thomas Chalmers." Curator: That idea offers something lovely. So thank you, both to Hill and Adamson for creating this photograph, and thank you for this chat – my world feels that much richer. Editor: Yes, all these processes! One cannot help wonder, if he held firm to some singular truth amidst it all? Anyway, something worth contemplating.