Gezicht op de Sentinel Rock in Yosemite Valley, Californië before 1886

Curator: What a hushed sort of majesty we have here. Looking at this gelatin silver print, I almost feel I should whisper. Editor: It’s a striking image, certainly. This photograph by George Fiske, taken before 1886, captures Yosemite Valley's Sentinel Rock with such starkness, offering us an insight into the mythos of the American West, specifically its evolving relationship to nature and the frontier. Curator: Evolving is the word, isn't it? This isn't just nature; it's nature framed, tamed, almost made theatrical by the crisp detail of the photograph. The perfect reflections...it's a very staged wilderness. Editor: The very act of photographing was always about staging a wilderness, making it accessible and palatable for an eastern audience largely ignorant of what these territories meant or their role in its brutal occupation. But, the scale of it all—those trees mirroring themselves in the river—isn't there something potentially destabilizing about the scene despite that calculated composition? A visual echo exposing the false promises of western expansion. Curator: Perhaps. I see instead that lovely quiet. Before the parks were inundated with Instagramming tourists, a sense of almost religious awe comes across, you know? Fiske’s deliberate compositions emphasize a tranquil scene, using light and shadow to evoke almost a dreamlike clarity... There is real spiritual striving on display, though that may be deeply intertwined with issues of access and privilege. Editor: The question, I think, is whose dream? And whose vision? Photographs like this did the real work of defining these spaces in ways that elided Indigenous relationships with the land and justified their displacement through notions of environmental determinism. It's all smoke and mirrors. Curator: And silver nitrate, clearly! Well, whether a mirror to exploitation or a window onto transcendence, it is one heck of a shot, yes? Food for thought as always. Editor: Indeed. Hopefully listeners find that context as fascinating as the aesthetic impression.