View from Rogi, Near Chini c. 1867

Editor: This striking albumen print, "View from Rogi, Near Chini," by Samuel Bourne, presents a dramatic mountainscape. I'm immediately drawn to the path carved into the cliffside – it seems to highlight human interaction with the environment. What strikes you about this piece? Curator: The path is key. Bourne’s photographs, made with such laborious wet-plate processes, were often used to promote colonial infrastructure. That path isn't just a scenic element; it's a material manifestation of control and access to resources. How does the photographic medium itself, with its demands and limitations, play into that story? Editor: So the very act of creating this image, with its technical constraints, is part of a larger narrative of resource extraction and colonial power? Fascinating. It makes me reconsider the "beauty" of the scene. Curator: Precisely. By understanding the means of production – the labor, the materials, the intended audience – we can move beyond a purely aesthetic appreciation and grapple with the complex social and political context in which this image was created and consumed.