Warkworth Castle before 1866

Editor: Here we have Thomas Annan's photograph "Warkworth Castle," taken sometime before 1866, an albumen print nestled in an album. It has such a haunting feel, like a memory fading at the edges. What whispers do you hear when you look at this crumbling stone, this photographic ghost? Curator: Oh, I hear echoes of grand feasts and tragic battles. See how Annan frames the castle, a sentinel against a soft sky? There’s a yearning for the past, a romantic obsession with ruins, but it is very quiet. Look closely – does the light feel…bleak? For me, the melancholic tone speaks to the ephemeral nature of power. Castles, kingdoms, empires – all turn to dust, eventually. Do you get a sense of that inevitable decay, perhaps the ‘un-building’ of everything, rather than the grandness we may associate with it? Editor: Absolutely, there’s something very…present, even, in its ruined state, almost as if nature reclaims it in real time. It reminds me that history isn’t some fixed thing, but a constant state of becoming – or un-becoming, I guess! Curator: Precisely! And I love that notion. You know, I like to think Annan, with his camera, wasn't just capturing a ruin, but capturing time itself. This photograph offers itself as both a reflection of then and now. Think about the science and the technique to capture this in the time that Annan took the picture. Then it almost transforms itself and defies time, because it also feels as though the castle may have been taken by drones yesterday. Editor: It is timeless, it really is! I never thought about it that way before - the technical and creative efforts meeting in the center. That definitely gave me a new perspective on seeing it and thinking about it. Curator: Yes! That makes the difference, to view all perspectives that are given to us and make us see the work with other eyes.