Reclame voor de Fire Insurance New York Underwriters Agency met een foto van het blussen van een brand 1905

Curator: Woah, that is… intense. It feels like standing right at the edge of chaos, all grit and smoke. Makes you cough just looking at it. Editor: You're right, the atmosphere is thick! This image, created around 1905 by De Witt C. Wheeler, is a promotional advertisement for the Fire Insurance New York Underwriters Agency. It's a gelatin silver print capturing firefighters battling a blaze, titled, rather dramatically, “Fighting the Flames.” Curator: Well, dramatically and effectively! I mean, what better way to showcase the need for fire insurance than to put a roaring inferno right in front of people? And the way the light catches the water…it’s beautiful, almost balletic, against all that destruction. There's a strange grace in the chaos. Editor: Precisely. Beyond the immediate drama, it highlights early 20th-century urban anxieties. Fires were a very real threat, and this image played into that, while of course offering a solution: insurance. It reflects how companies used imagery to shape public perception and capitalize on those fears. Look at the sheer volume of pipes lying about! Curator: Right? Like industrial pythons all vying for water's life-giving flow. It speaks to a world undergoing huge, clunky changes, doesn't it? All that heavy machinery versus the fragility of what...wood and brick buildings? It's kind of prophetic, even. And I see the touches of art nouveau! Editor: It absolutely does speak to the changing landscape. And it's an intriguing example of street photography employed for explicitly commercial ends. We often see street photography documenting social issues, but here it’s being leveraged to sell peace of mind. What this gelatin print medium offered was great fidelity with affordable printing and distribution to a wide demographic, giving it social reach and significance. Curator: I am oddly moved by this piece—moved by that fight against inevitable destruction. I also get a sense of community, and working toward something. The adrenaline must have been incredible. So it's not *just* insurance; it's that, together, maybe we have some agency over disaster. Or at least we can hose it down pretty effectively! Editor: A poignant reflection. It seems Wheeler's image managed to tap into both our fears and our hopes. Even now it offers a view into how anxieties about urban safety could be packaged and sold—making us ponder how much the art of marketing has truly evolved.